Saturday, December 1, 2012

... and the News

After getting the news and scheduling my appointment, I tried to call my mom, but couldn't get a hold of her.  This was understandable since she was on medicine that made her sleep most of the day.  I then tried to call my dad and again I failed.  It was 9:15am their time, so he was at work.  Justin decided to take me to the Jack-in-the-Box that just opened in our state (and happened to be the first one in Ohio) that very day.  This was a big deal to me since I used to live in Texas and been missing it for a long time.  This was his way of calming me down, though I was calm, but also I was still in shock.

Sometime after ordering my food and sat down at a booth my dad returned my call.  It was painful to tell my dad I had cancer.  I wish there was a right way, a true right way to explain over the phone that you have cancer to your parent.  I told my dad when my appointment was and he said he would look into plane tickets, hotel room, and talk to my sister about picking up my mom from the airport.  I expressed to my dad how I wanted him to come up as well and thought it would be best for my mom if he came.  For those that don't know me, I always put others before me, especially when I'm dealing with a major issue myself.

Most of the day is a blur to me now.  I remember we went home and told Justin's parents the news with his dad's reaction of yelling "OH MY GOD!"  I eventually told my mom, my siblings, and after getting to tell them I posted it on Facebook and Plurk so the rest of the family and friends can see the news.

When I was on the phone with my mom I learned that my dad was able to come, but was leaving the day after my surgery since he had to work.  This was fine to me until the next day when I got an email from my ENT's secretary asking to move my appointment a week earlier.  I quickly replied asking why we need to move it and explain my parents already bought their tickets to fly up from Texas.  It turned out that someone had the cancer far worse than me and needed a 12 hour surgery and she asked me if we could move it back a day.  I was not going to block someone from having surgery, especially someone that needed it more than me and I said I was fine with moving my surgery back a day.

My parents were coming up on Monday, my dad was leaving the Wednesday which is now my surgery date and my mom was leaving Friday.  I told my parents the news and my dad went to see about changing his leave date to Thursday, but was going to cost too much.  My parents are dealing with a lot of money issues from their move, so I understood, so no judging people.

The next week and a half was spent with Justin and me preparing for the surgery... getting me clothes that would be easier for me to put on afterwards, food to eat, a couch pillow with arms, and probably other things that I needed.  I also spent a lot of time on the internet on support group sites reading about other people's experience and talking to them.  Throughout this week I was mostly fine, but it wasn't until the week of that I started getting nervous.

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