Well after weeks of blissful calmness, its happened again, I've fallen apart. (Told ya I'd be back when it happened, not if it happened!)
I don't know if the headaches triggered me falling apart, or Dad's condition triggered the headaches, or if the headaches are due to a drop in the 'happy' chemicals in my brain, or if Dad's condition just makes me miserable. But last week I was coping just fine, was coping better than I had for 2yrs and I managed to feel that way for over a month, but this week I started to feel a twingeing of pain in the left side of my head again, it got worse as the week progressed and today I've had the day off sick and feel like someone's taken a cricket bat to my head. Along with all that for the past few days I felt myself getting increasingly miserable about Dad again. Finding myself crying after visiting him, crying driving to work, crying at night in bed.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I have made myself an appointment with the doctor but I know they are just going to put it all down to stress...but why was I sooo okay for the past month and a half??? The other alternative is that I am depressed....I can live with that, if it is constant....but why was I so okay for a month and half????
My husband must be so tired of all the drama I am always in the middle of. I am so sick of being the looney. And it don't half scare me that being such a looney ain't that far away from sitting in Dad's seat at the old folks home!
Dad's condition hasn't noticeably changed in the last week or two..but I do find myself this week screaming silently in my head...how long can I bear this?? I don't want him to die, but I can't stand seeing him like this and knowing where he is headed.
I said to my husband today, that I swing between feeling like I'm a complete and utter loser because I am not coping, (and I know I'd be the first to tell anyone else who said the same thing that they have every right to feel like they can't cope) but then when you think about it, its kind of like seeing your loved one getting hit by a car, but in slow motion, where you see the injuries being inflicted one by one, bodily and mentally, where you are just screaming inside 'Nooooo', where you feel like you are pushing every muscle and tendon to breaking point, pushing your body to get there in time to stop the impact, but all the while knowing that there is nothing you can do, your loved one is already dead (and as I type that I say 'No, no, no' to myself nonetheless) that this is all for nothing....and to top it all off this is the slowest slow motion in history!
The one recurring theme I hear in my head when I think about Dad's condition these days is the very boring but very honest emotion that, 'This disease sucks'.
Oh and as for those that point out the good side of things, that at least we get to say goodbye, at least we get time to make our peace, that another family member could be gone tomorrow and we wouldn't have had the same opportunities....I say....
This isn't the long kiss goodbye, its the long nightmare of asking 'are u still there?'.
Just like every one of us has a chance to say our goodbye's to every other person in our life every day, 'just in case' they die tomorrow, I don't feel I've ever had a chance to say goodbye to dad. I lost him suddenly on the first day he was diagnosed...parts of him had already gone by then, I have never known since that first day 6 almost 7 yrs ago if he was still there enough to fully comprehend what was about to happen, what was already happening. And I'm sorry, but I think most ordinary folk, just don't say goodbye when they've been told they have a terminal illness that will take years to kill them. At first you hope that a cure will be found, then you hope that it will happen slowly, then you hope that he won't keep going down hill so rapidly like he's on a slippery slope to hell, then you hope it will be all over quickly, then you hope that you can just manage to keep coping for as long as this drags out.
I saw Dad the other night in a moment of possible clarity he saw me arriving at a distance, and when he did, he who no longer talks said 'Oh, oh, oh' and then he smiled and then he laughed, and he smiled and he laughed some more, and he looked sooo happy and soo happy to see me, oh so happy (I had been absent from visits for two days). And, it absolutely broke my heart. I didn't get to say goodbye, you don't just say to your Dad, 'Hey Dad, so seeing as we both know you're dying, lets have a few kisses and hugs, say our goodbyes now and then everything will be fine, you can go on your way and I'll cope just fine.'
Instead I sat there the other night, stroking Dad's hair while he still had a glimmer of the fool's grin on his face (still feeling the happiness of seeing me), telling him about every day life, and telling him I wished he'd hurry up and get better so we could just get out of this place.
I love him so much, and it was wonderful to know I could make him so happy (though there is also some doubt, that maybe it was just the drugs and he would have reacted the same to anyone that day - and that thought bites too) but here I am today, writing on here again, trying to muster the strength to get myself to visit him again.
I miss my Dad so much.
I don't know if the headaches triggered me falling apart, or Dad's condition triggered the headaches, or if the headaches are due to a drop in the 'happy' chemicals in my brain, or if Dad's condition just makes me miserable. But last week I was coping just fine, was coping better than I had for 2yrs and I managed to feel that way for over a month, but this week I started to feel a twingeing of pain in the left side of my head again, it got worse as the week progressed and today I've had the day off sick and feel like someone's taken a cricket bat to my head. Along with all that for the past few days I felt myself getting increasingly miserable about Dad again. Finding myself crying after visiting him, crying driving to work, crying at night in bed.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I have made myself an appointment with the doctor but I know they are just going to put it all down to stress...but why was I sooo okay for the past month and a half??? The other alternative is that I am depressed....I can live with that, if it is constant....but why was I so okay for a month and half????
My husband must be so tired of all the drama I am always in the middle of. I am so sick of being the looney. And it don't half scare me that being such a looney ain't that far away from sitting in Dad's seat at the old folks home!
Dad's condition hasn't noticeably changed in the last week or two..but I do find myself this week screaming silently in my head...how long can I bear this?? I don't want him to die, but I can't stand seeing him like this and knowing where he is headed.
I said to my husband today, that I swing between feeling like I'm a complete and utter loser because I am not coping, (and I know I'd be the first to tell anyone else who said the same thing that they have every right to feel like they can't cope) but then when you think about it, its kind of like seeing your loved one getting hit by a car, but in slow motion, where you see the injuries being inflicted one by one, bodily and mentally, where you are just screaming inside 'Nooooo', where you feel like you are pushing every muscle and tendon to breaking point, pushing your body to get there in time to stop the impact, but all the while knowing that there is nothing you can do, your loved one is already dead (and as I type that I say 'No, no, no' to myself nonetheless) that this is all for nothing....and to top it all off this is the slowest slow motion in history!
The one recurring theme I hear in my head when I think about Dad's condition these days is the very boring but very honest emotion that, 'This disease sucks'.
Oh and as for those that point out the good side of things, that at least we get to say goodbye, at least we get time to make our peace, that another family member could be gone tomorrow and we wouldn't have had the same opportunities....I say....
This isn't the long kiss goodbye, its the long nightmare of asking 'are u still there?'.
Just like every one of us has a chance to say our goodbye's to every other person in our life every day, 'just in case' they die tomorrow, I don't feel I've ever had a chance to say goodbye to dad. I lost him suddenly on the first day he was diagnosed...parts of him had already gone by then, I have never known since that first day 6 almost 7 yrs ago if he was still there enough to fully comprehend what was about to happen, what was already happening. And I'm sorry, but I think most ordinary folk, just don't say goodbye when they've been told they have a terminal illness that will take years to kill them. At first you hope that a cure will be found, then you hope that it will happen slowly, then you hope that he won't keep going down hill so rapidly like he's on a slippery slope to hell, then you hope it will be all over quickly, then you hope that you can just manage to keep coping for as long as this drags out.
I saw Dad the other night in a moment of possible clarity he saw me arriving at a distance, and when he did, he who no longer talks said 'Oh, oh, oh' and then he smiled and then he laughed, and he smiled and he laughed some more, and he looked sooo happy and soo happy to see me, oh so happy (I had been absent from visits for two days). And, it absolutely broke my heart. I didn't get to say goodbye, you don't just say to your Dad, 'Hey Dad, so seeing as we both know you're dying, lets have a few kisses and hugs, say our goodbyes now and then everything will be fine, you can go on your way and I'll cope just fine.'
Instead I sat there the other night, stroking Dad's hair while he still had a glimmer of the fool's grin on his face (still feeling the happiness of seeing me), telling him about every day life, and telling him I wished he'd hurry up and get better so we could just get out of this place.
I love him so much, and it was wonderful to know I could make him so happy (though there is also some doubt, that maybe it was just the drugs and he would have reacted the same to anyone that day - and that thought bites too) but here I am today, writing on here again, trying to muster the strength to get myself to visit him again.
I miss my Dad so much.