Tag Archives: broken heart

Prognosis

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I’ve always taken the people I love for granted. When the thought of losing my grandparents — my Noni and Popi, and my Biz Noni — came up, I’d push the thought away. See, I grew up surrounded by these three, and they are still a strong presence in my life. (I live with them and see them all every day.) My grandparents and great-grandmother are an important part of me. Noni is 62, Popi is 70, and Biz Noni is 86.

“They’re all in decent health,” I’d tell myself. “No one’s going anywhere anytime soon. Stop being so morbid.”

The truth is, I’ve been jaded. Because a week ago today, I found out that my Popi has cancer. Before running additional tests, the doctors at the VA hospital said they thought it was stage three and that it was in his liver and maybe lungs.

I told myself, “That’s shitty, but he’ll be okay.” I just couldn’t think otherwise.

A week later, we are playing a new game. The stage three is actually stage four. The cancer is in his liver, lungs, most of his spine, and his left hip. They have diagnosed it as aggressive lung cancer, and have told us that they can just make him comfortable at this point, via Percocet and chemotherapy. The chemo will extend his prognosis; without the chemo, they were giving him a few weeks. I don’t want to say what the prognosis with the chemo is. I don’t want to think in numbers. I don’t want to think in time.

According to the (awesome) doctors at the VA, the cancer took root two months ago.

Two months.

It only took two months to spread that quickly.

Two fucking months.

I went to visit Popi again today. He looked good; still handsome, but very, very tired. He take a chemo tablet tomorrow morning, and starts his first round of aggressive chemo via IV on Monday. This particular kind of chemo could cause him hearing loss and kidney problems, as well as the usual nausea and possible hair loss (not that my Popi has a whole lot of hair left, anyway).

It still has not sunk in for me. It feels like this is happening to someone else. I cry, but the pain ebbs and turns to numbness and cold disbelief. I think, “No. Not my Popi.” I write pages and pages in my journal. I let Mike hold me tight. I let my mother, grandmother, and aunt hold me like I am a small child while I cry. I lay awake at night, unable to sleep. And still, it doesn’t sink in.

No. Not my Popi.

They crawl in like a cockroach, leaving babies in my bed

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After I published yesterday’s post, I went downstairs for a shower. It didn’t take long for me to completely freak out about what I’d written. Of course, it also didn’t take long for me to have a total nervous breakdown.

It’s hard for me to talk about these things, but I have severe trust issues because of many bad things that have been done to me. It’s so bad that my feathers will get ruffled at the slightest thing, no matter how innocent the intentions of the other person were. I’m not going to go into detail, but there was a misunderstanding on both parts and I freaked out. Completely. It was understandable, from all sides, but what I did wrong was shut the other person out. Completely.

Last night I finally let Mike pick me up and finally told him things I’d never told him, things I’d never told anyone. We spent three hours being completely honest with each other about anything and everything, and even though this weekend was straight out of a Lifetime movie it was so emotionally disastrous, I think our relationship is a lot stronger now. It was really, really hard to tell him these things but once I did I felt as if I could breathe again.

After the hard stuff was over with, we spent the rest of the time telling things we love about each other. It’s a game we play every once in a while, but we’ve never gone that in depth. He literally told me he loves the way I run, because it’s “doofy looking and cute” And he loves my nose. And lots of other stuff.

It seems like every time we go through the proverbial storm, we always come out stronger than we were before. This weekend was an emotional shipwreck, but I feel even more connected to him now. I’m pretty sure that’s a good sign that it’s meant to be.

I felt kind of guilty about yesterday’s post for a while, but then I realized that someone else out there has to feel the same. Someone else out there may have needed that horribly depressing post to know that it’s okay to feel that way.

I’m still pretty shaken from everything but last night helped a lot. I hadn’t realized that these things bothered me so much still, but I couldn’t deny it to myself anymore.

I have to block out thoughts of you so I don't lose my head

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I’ve been living in a little bubble of hell during the last two days. I had weird, empty nightmares the last couple of nights. I woke up this morning thinking about old, painful things. I laid in bed for hours last night, my head all kinds of fucked up. I have lost more trust than I ever have before during this weekend, and since Friday it seems like my past has come back to haunt me. I’m scared and I’m alone and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I want more: to be alone or to try and learn to trust again. It seems like every time I put my trust in someone, they just end up hurting me or taking advantage of me.

What do you do when the one person you thought you could trust, the one person you thought you were safe with, is not that person? What if, time and time again, they keep doing the same thing? What if they apologize for it every time but then do it over and over, even though they know it hurts you? What if you can’t trust anyone?

You are supposed to be able to trust teachers. They are supposed to care about you and they are supposed to guide you. They are supposed to be people you can look up to and people you can go to when things are wrong. Sometimes, sick people hide behind the facade of someone who cares. Sometimes these people hurt other people. Sometimes, when you’ve been hurt, no one believes you. The teacher still has his job. He can do it to someone else.

You are supposed to have fun in school. You’re supposed to make friends and maybe even date. They shouldn’t make you do things you don’t want to do. They are supposed to be your peers and your comrades, but most of them are sick. They touch you and whisper in your ear, they make you want to scream but you can’t.

Time and time again my trust has been betrayed. I am naive and stupid; once I finally let my guard down and start opening up, I only end up being hurt. I want, more than anything, to give back the trust that others put into me, but I just can’t anymore. I think of all the times I was lied to and all of the times I was disrespected and it makes me fucking sick.

Once again, my trust has been betrayed. Once again I question myself and I wonder if I’m just an easy target. The things that have been done to me are sick and unspeakable, and I thought that it was all behind me. I thought that I could move on and that I could finally have an unshakeable kind of trust in someone else.