I wouldn't normally write about things like this here, or anywhere online, but I am kind of at a loss right now. My step mom Mary went thru surgery earlier this year to remove the top lobe of her right lung. Now, only a few months later, a couple of new nodes have appeared, and, well, survival odds from lung cancer is never very good.
Whatever this is, benign or malignant, it may not matter. She is not up to another operation, or any of the other standard approaches to cancer treatment. She has another complication: dementia that was compounded by the anesthesia from the last operation. To boot, she has always been slight, and has lost nearly 20 lbs since the operation. She will not survive. It doesn't take an oncologist to put it all together.
I have faced cancer now too many times, and people's grasping at straws is the really hard part. My dad truly loves this woman with all his heart, and to lose her is going to be a real blow. He is a very healthy active 86 year old, and I think I am more stressed out by what this will do to him than what I know will be Mary's outcome. Is that wrong?
One person's life is not worth more than another, but I think my step sister and I both knew pretty early on that her mom was going to be heading down a long road, and we all knew where it would end. How, and how long, well, are pretty much up for grabs at this moment. I am a firm believer that quality of life is far more important than quantity. Out of fear of the unknown, we cling to life as though it were some kind of great possession. Truly, I tell any with the ears to hear, dying is easy. It is stepping thru a doorway. Being here, in this illusion, trying to suss out how to work thru all the crap we put ourselves thru, that's the hard part.
Watching a parent pass over is rough. Nothing anyone tells you will prepare you for it, period. I think I am remembering a lot of the rough times I went thru with my own mom, and it is tainting how I react to this. I can't take my father's fear or pain away. I can only be there to take up the slack on the other stuff, so he can have time to deal with what matters most to him. I have managed to put myself in the fight-or-flight mode this evening, and get a headache out of it in the meanwhile.
I am going to go do something simple, for me, and try to forget for awhile that this journey is far from over.
You see? This is why we look for someone else to walk thru this world with. Things like this are so much easier when one has another to help share the burden.
How I survive this crap alone, I do not know.
Maybe I am made of kryptonite.