Where I'm at today....

“How are you doing?”….  Four little words that I’ve struggled with since my mom got sick… and for those who know me well. Those are the words in which cause me to break and I go through periods of time where I have to tell people… “I’m fine as long as you don’t ask me that question…..”

Those four little words for me asked by those who I know genuinely care result in the flood gates opening and the feeling of I’ve got it under control vanishes just as quickly… I’ve created a system…. I can hold it together, get through the hard stuff. Be there for everyone that needs me, pack my plate full, re rout where my mind is and carry on as long as those words do not crop up… from those who sincerely mean them..

  When I feel I have time to talk, need to break, take a breath and sometimes just need to let the flood gates flow.. I pick up the phone and am lucky enough to have those in my life who by now know, through the countless ups/downs… and sound in my voice when I need to break…

 

When my Mom became sick… I of course went through all of the stages of grief…. More than once as I knew in the beginning as a result of having a nursing background exactly how my mom’s story was going to go… I essentially started grieving her death a week into her diagnosis. The hardest thing I struggled with was the superficial norm we in our culture insist on practicing… and it stems from the question… “How are you doing?” we are trained to ask the question… It is in our blood…  When someone who’s suffered a loss.. regardless of how well you know them you ask… if someone is sick you ask…etc. The issue I have is, the majority of people ask, because they feel obligated… They really don’t want to hear… “My day was awful, I’m struggling with the realization I’m about lose my mom and am scared beyond belief.” They want to hear “I’m good/I’m ok”… and then be told “thank you so much for asking….”  I get that no one knows what to say… but when you’re going through really hard stuff… Wasted breath to answer superficial questions are hard, especially when they are during the most awkward times.. Like at or during work when I’m arms deep in a patient.. During my children’s activates…. Places not meant for me to bear my soul and really tell you how I’m doing…. It’s really easy to tell who asks sincerely and who asks out of obligation and sometimes it’s harder to brush off then others….

       This is where I’m at right now… somewhere in between being able to answer those four little words and mostly not….. That’s because I’m struggling…. I’m struggling with the risks associated with what I’m doing…. The anxiety that this is all coming so quickly and I don’t have time for anything to go wrong.. I’m struggling with the ignorance of some people and the fact that my kids are at the other end of all of this, as it’s something we will all be going through not just me… I’m struggling with the fact I know it’s going to hurt and that the incisions are awful … I’m struggling with feeling alone.. Even though my mom wasn’t a great source of support I still really want to hear her voice tell me it’ll be ok… that even though I’ve planned and planned and organized beyond belief.. What happens if I can’t do it on my own.. What happens if there is a complication… I’m struggling right now mostly because I am scared.. I’m a nurse, a surgical nurse who sees when this surgery goes really well and really bad… I know what it’s like to have someone’s heart stop and be on the other end of restarting it… I’m present for the emotional roller coaster of women seeing their incisions from a mastectomy and no matter how prepared it’s always a roller coaster… I’m scared because there is absolutely no one who knows what I am going through…. or can fully relate… That in between every play date, school parent council meeting, work, hockey, swimming and helping with others schedules, demands of life and everyone else’s plans for the future.. The struggle with all of the what if’s.. and even though I’m determined everything will go fine and I’ve planned for everything… I’m still struggling a bit…

   I have so much to be thankful for and am so blessed to know I’m in the best hands. I not only have great health care professionals looking after me, but most of them are my close friends. I’ve got an amazing husband who I know will have everything covered and taken care of, down to shaped sandwiches and curled pigtails.. I know because he’s done it every time.. with out question and anything in return.. I am so lucky to have him by my side and the reason I know this too will be ok….