Friday, October 28, 2005

Day 23

Well, you're really going to see a good side of me.

I'm tired of friends and acquantances calling and sending cards and arriving on my doorstep with food. I feel like an ungrateful bastard but everytime someone gives me a concerned look or a "just checking in with you" call, it reminds me that I'm sick. I don't want to be sick so don't remind me. When I first found out that I had testicular cancer I called a friend of a friend that had had it several years ago. He was very supportive and encouraging. Not a big deal, you'll be back on your feet in no time - he said. And I resented it. I resented it anytime someone said testicular cancer is so curable - it was like they were making light of what i was going through. And he didn't know what I was going through. My case is nothing like and is much worse than his was. He didn't have to go through three cycles of chemo, he didn't have to go through any chemo at all. And now I look at this as just a bad case of the flu --- to consider it any worse is to realize how serious it really is.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

day three

i just got off the phone with my sister. it's always interesting when when my sister and i talk about our relationship with our parents. it's almost as if we've had two different moms and two different dads. it's easy for me to be self-centered and, in the emotional turmoil i've been in, forget where other people are coming from. when my father told me to come home the other day my first reaction was that he was overreaching and taking command (i am still in charge mr haig!). of course, that was what he was supposed to do. but i panicked, the last thing i wanted to do was be trapped in my parents home (i don't really want to be trapped in my own home). it took me awhile to realize that's what any parent would do --- they would, as my sister said my dad had done, get a room ready.

one of my fears has always been --- who is going to take care of me when i get old? i don't have kids, i'm not in a relationship --- who's going to push my wheelchair? so i've always tried to be fairly self-sufficient. i'll ask someone for advice every now and then but it's hard for me to ask for help. i've never had to really depend on anyone, i guess, since i left home (though oddly the whole notion of being an adult is something that i've only recently been - slowly - getting used to. like i said --- i don't have kids). even the thought of my parents needing care scares me. it's not that i'm not up to the task --- when push comes to shove, i can do anything (wasn't that a helen reddy song?) but it's because when they get to that point how much more time will we have left together. hmmm, i guess it's really about that whole intamicy thing --- which i spent several years in therapy for but never really "solved".

i've gotten to seeing my circle of friends as a family lately (i know, there's always that talk about creating your own family but i don't need to do that) --- we're close, we see each other fairly often, sometimes we get on each others nerves but i can't imagine anything that would break us up. yeah, someone might move but, if we hadn't seen each other in a long time, we'd pick up right where we left off --- just like i do with my own family. i've told only a couple of friends so far that i've had the cat scan and that dr vasquez thinks it's lymphoma. there are a couple more people that i want to tell, a couple of close friends. i sort of dread it. i had thought that i would just tell everyone at once --- that way i wouldn't have to keep repeating the story. myron warned me against that --- rightly so, i guess. it would get too emotional. actually, it's better to do it over the phone --- that way if i start to cry (and i do that easily) or if the other person starts to cry we can sort of disguise it with a cough or something. when i actually see someone cry and i'm even a little bit emotional - forget it, the dam's broken. and let me tell you, of the three people i have left that i want to tell, it's going to be a challenge not to cry with two of them (not that there's anything wrong with crying ...)

my first appointment with my surgical oncologist is on monday.