You know when something is bothering but you just keep your mouth shut and just keep trucking on, hoping everyone thinks you're doing just fine?
Well that's how I'm feeling lately.
I posted about this before but since then it's been, well, hard.
I'll give you back story if you're new here.
He's not good at Dancing, but he's the life of the party.
My Dad has cancer.
He has stage 3C melanoma.
No cancer is good, of course. But I thought melanoma was treatable.
And it is. But my Dad's seems to really want to put up a fight. And not a fight that he's winning.
A few months ago he got on a clinical trial my whole family was thrilled about.
Out of all the hundreds of patients on the trial he had the worst side effects.
One of those being a colocstopy.(Where they removed part of his colon).
He had to leave his job for an extended period of time.
Take tons of pills.
And really change his whole life.
I like to think of myself as a happy and outgoing person, but I don't like to talk about “feelings” as much with others. I mean, clearly I share a lot on this blog. But I don't get deep all the time.
Ever since my dad got sick I've had a very hard time coping. I'm just not me. Usually I can just keep on keeping on, but I'm realizing: I can't. I cry a lot. Something will piss me off and I will get furious (especially at my husband Michael). I'm angrier. I'm sad. And I can't really figure out how to control it.
It's particularly weird to me that I'm acting like this because I've gone through this before, with my sister. She beat Leukemia and is doing wonderfully now.
But he's my dad. He has always been my rock, my shoulder to cry on, the one I go to when I'm struggling. Now I need to be that for him. And I don't want to crumble. I want to be strong. I want to show him that it's ok to be sad. That he doesn't have to be strong for us. Like he always has been.
So I need to pull it together.
I want to be a great daughter for my Dad. I want this time with him to be good. And happy.
But I also need to realize that it's ok to be upset sometimes. But not ok to lash out.
I want to thank you being there for me when I'm sad. Asking me if I'm ok. Asking how my dad is. It means so much to me and helps me when I'm down.
So my question is: How do you deal?
