Day 6

Tuesday

After the multidisciplinary meeting yesterday,  we got a phone call confirming the surgical appointment on Friday.    I took this as reassuring.   There must not be anything so urgent it can not wait till Friday.   Still, at the back of my mind is still the thought “what if”.

Our anxiety and tension levels have visibly come down and the knot in my stomach has subsided to a butterfly.

I met my friend Lizzie for coffee on Sunday, ostensibly to plan some trips, which of course I cannot do now till I know the plan.

After I had ranted about something and nothing and I disagreed with everything she said, she told me to calm down because I was so tense.   I could see how arguments could spark off easily between people , when you do not realise how wound up you are.

This release of tension really helped.    Lizzie has her faults (as we all do) but she is a good friend and did not get offended at my ranting.   She completely understood.   I love her for that.

I suppose you go through a kind of grief process. Shock and disbelief, anger bargaining; depression and acceptance.

Its a bit like the 12 step programme.  You get the problem, you admit and accept the issue, whether it be fear, guilt, sadness or whatever.   Then share about it , then leave it behind in the hands of a “higher power”.  ( Or in this case the doctors.)

Somehow this helps to get away from the self focusing that just goes round and round and achieves nothing…… this to me is what in AA they describe as a  “spiritual awakening”. ….. nothing to do with God,…… it’s really just being aware of something and someone else other than yourself and your often petty worries.

After all this is not about me, it’s about Michael and although my musings here may be about what I am thinking and feeling.    Leaving it all here enables me to be of use to Michael and others.

I am discovering, some people talk, some people cry,   some people are silent ,  some people paint,  some people ignore it,    but for me THIS is what I need to do. ……write.   Maybe I have been a writer all along and didn’t know it.  The sort of person who needs to get it out in writing.  Not necessarily for anybody to read.

It is in self forgetting that one finds

As St Francis if Assissi said

So life goes on.   The world does not stop because my husband has cancer.

I go to work,  other people need me to be there for them on one of the happiest days of their lives , or sometimes when they are afraid or sad.

I need to pick my grandson Geezer up from school and listen as he excitedly tells me about Skylander giant’s latest adventure……and I love him when he gives me an extra hug because   ” mummy said I had to be extra good, because you might be thinking about Grandpas operation”.

He is always good for me anyway.

My colleagues tell me I seem very calm, even putting on make-up and looking  extra smart. The house has to be clean.   I need to maintain a façade of normality, as part of my coping strategy. After all as Michael says  “it is as it is”

Nothing we can do will change things now.

Michael seems cheery enough,   a little bit more affectionate perhaps and certainly less cranky than he usually is, as if the pedantic things he gets annoyed about suddenly don’t matter.   He will ring me for silly things, as if to reassure himself I am still here.

He told me he did discuss cancer with a woman in the bus,   who told him about her brain tumour and breast cancer.    I suppose sharing with a stranger who can empathise is safer, as you will not cause them any worry,  like you might with people who love you.

Maybe his strategy of   “ignore it, , maybe it will sort itself out,””   is not such a bad idea after all

Three more days to wait.

Love Denise