Little Voices in My Head

I was going to start this blog out with a funny quip, or maybe a story…but I can’t. I’m a cranky little beast lately and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Last week, my mom called to tell me that she and my dad were going straight from his colonoscopy appointment to our general practitioner to ‘talk’ about the large tumor they found. My daddy has cancer.

We don’t know yet what course his treatment will take. We only know that it’s a fast, aggressive type, and that they’re going to get him into surgery to remove it and chemo to kill what’s left ASAP. Words like ‘fast’ and ‘aggressive’ are not the words you want to hear after the word ‘cancer’.  There just aren’t good words to hear after that. I don’t know if he’ll even choose to have treatment. There aren’t enough answers and just too many damn questions for my taste.

The clinician inside me knows what’s going to happen, and has accepted that my dad needs surgery, chemo, radiation, and even then, he may not make it to see his babies get married. I know this. I know that it will be a hard course of treatment, that he will be a sick, sick man for a long, long time. I have accepted that we will all have to stay strong and positive for him, because he’s scared. I have joked with him and offered all answers I have to his questions. I have not cried. Because right now, the clinical side of me has to stay on top, has to be here for my family…and essentially I’m treating my dad like just another patient who deserves my care, compassion, and respect.

Inside, the little girl who loves her daddy is crying buckets of unshed tears and screaming at unnamed gods for doing this to my daddy. I’m angry at him for not getting the colonoscopy sooner. I’m angry that I can’t take much time off work to go with him to appointments, and just be with my Dad.  I’m devastated that my big, strong daddy could die.  Today, the angry, clinical, practical Carissa is reigning supreme. I make no promises about tomorrow.

Carissa the Angry