You are sitting down to a nice dinner when you hear a knock on the door.That's strange, I wasn't expecting anyone. You open the door a crack to see who it is. He shoves the door all the way open and barges in.
It's cancer. The world's worst houseguest.
He walks right past you and leaves muddy footprints all over the carpet you just had cleaned. You had no clue there was any chance of him coming over. It was the last thing on your mind, but here he is, lounging on the couch like he owns the place. Who is this? What is he doing here?
Once the shock wears off, you try to talk to him. How long will he be staying? Why did he pick you? He just shrugs, goes to sleep, snoring loudly.
You start to question yourself. If only you hadn't left the porch light on, maybe he would have gone right past your house. The neighbors whisper that you never should have bought that welcome mat. And the charming walkway just encouraged him.
The visit drags on and on. The days turn into weeks, and before you know it he has been there for months destroying your house and turning your life upside-down. You are exhausted because he wakes you up at all hours of the night. He walks around in slippers and thick socks, saying that your floors hurt his tender feet. He has puked on the carpet more than once and clogged up the shower drain with his constant shedding hair. He alternately eats everything in sight and then complains that your food tastes weird. You notice that a few friends have stopped coming over, and you know that it is because they cannot stand being around this guy. You can hardly blame them; you don't want him here either.
However; you also discover you have an amazing community that offers to bring meals, help out around the house, and even drive your nasty houseguest all over town to his various appointments.
As time goes on, you meet other people who have experienced this terrible houseguest. Yeah, the same thing happened to me. He showed up totally unannounced and made me adjust my whole life to accommodate him. You now discover that you have a membership in the club that no one wants to join, and soon you are swapping tips with others. You find that together you can even laugh at his bizarre quirks.
After a while, you start to get used to him hanging around, but you never forget that he is there. When you are feeling relaxed and happy, you hear him run to the bathroom. Your quiet book and cup of tea are interrupted by his hacking cough in the next room. He is always present.
One thing is for certain, your life is never the same again after you receive a visit from The World's Worst Houseguest.
I started counseling with my husband yesterday...we are doing grieving counseling. First we will go to two sessions, then the kids will join us. This houseguest is interrupting everything we once thought we knew about one another. Everything has changed. There is so much crying in our house...so much sadness, and as a mother all I want to do is take it away but I cannot.
Cancer?!?
This can't be happening.
What did I do to deserve this?
Am I being punked?
Is this my fault?
This isn't real.
Why me?
Cancer. The big C. The malady that once was only spoken about in whispers. The Voldemort of diseases. With so much fear surrounding this diagnosis, it's no wonder we end up asking, "Why me?"
Why does a 35 year old healthy mother of three get pulmonary fibrosis and stage iv lung cancer?
Adenocarcinoma of the lung is not supposed to spread quickly. Well, guess what....in my case, it has.
Here is my bad news that I discussed with my counselor: the lung cancer came back even bigger in the same place it was cut out, it is even bigger in the other lung, they believe it spread to my colon, and now they think it is in my bones.
The good news.....this is not something that can be inherited by my kids. Thank God.
This brings us back to the why.
There is no clear answer to the why. Why do babies die before they are even born? Nobody knows the answer. And nobody can tell me why I have pulmonary fibrosis and stage iv cancer. It just happened.
So, I have decided that I am going to make videos for my kids that they won't know about. It will be like I am still here and they will always have a piece of me.
I am going to write each of my kids letters, which I will post on here.
And, I am going to go birthday shopping for my kids so that every time they open a gift they will always be able to feel my presence.
A strange kind of boogeyman enters your world when you become a cancer family. I've learned that the thing of nightmares can come from within my own body. We all face the same impermanence and chaos in the world, but a journey like this forces you to come face-to-face with mortality in a way that many others can ignore. I miss that ignorance. And it makes my heart ache that my children will grow up never having known it.
Tick....tick....tick
My clock is ticking. Ya know what sucks about this whole thing? Having your whole future torn away from you when you were just getting started. When things were looking so bright. When you have a house full of children counting on you.
(They're still counting on you.)
So what do you do?
You dust yourself off, take stock of what you still CAN do, where you still CAN play an important role, and what dreams you STILL dare to dream.
Love you all and truly mean it and God loves you too,
Shanna xoxo
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