When the sky falls . . .

When my father was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in the summer of 2005, I freaked. Quite literally. The diagnosis was hard to fathom. While I wasn't really shocked (we'd kind of seen it coming) the reality of the words felt truly harsh. How was I supposed to cope with this. How were my parents going to cope. I can vividly remember being in the hospital room with my dad when Dr. Hong, then an unfamiliar Oncologist arrived with the news. My dad was glad that I was the one who had been there and not my mom. We sat and listened as Dr. Hong told us what had been discovered during the surgery and what those discoveries meant in terms of life expectancy. I mean, when someone starts talking about life expectancy you just freak. The outlook wasn't good, 18 months to 2 years. He did give us some best case scenarios, but was sure to emphasize that these were highly unusual. We cried after the doctor left. We probably cried while he was there, but my memory has faded. I was completely devastated. My dad had always been my rock, my go to guy, the guy who took care of me and WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO. My dad while strong and positive found the weight of the diagnosis overwhelming. But unlike me, he wasn't thinking about himself, he was thinking about my mom.

To cope with my new reality, I turned to a couple of old friends. The friends who'd gotten me through some of the other rough patches of life: alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and food. Those were my defaults when dealing really stressful news. Many a Cook has this default setting. The alcohol seemed to numb the pain. I craved drinks like never before. The alcohol helped me fall asleep and the nicotine was a nice companion to alcohol. The caffeine helped in the mornings after mostly sleepless night. Yes, the alcohol helped me to fall asleep, but never to stay asleep. And food, well food brings comfort. I loved to just sit and eat candy or chips after the kids were in bed. They've always been my most guilty pleasure.

I also sobbed a lot. It felt good to cry. I wasn't just a little sad, I was overwhelmingly fucked in the head worried about my imminent loss. I spoke with my brother on the phone a lot over the course of those weeks. It had to be the most we'd talked in our lives. The world just seemed out of control as if it was spinning on its axis at warp speed while I was left to hold on, if I could. Slowly, I settled in to a routine during my father's time in the hospital. I'd get up early and go to the hospital and then head off to work. I was teaching a new summer school program at UCONN and the chaos of that was a much needed distraction from my father's illness.
After the dust had settled and we'd made it through the initial diagnosis my dad went home from the hospital. When he was readmitted to the hospital just a few weeks later the normalcy which I'd craved once again bit the dust. The second stay in the hospital seemed harder because my father started to take the pain medication. I just hadn't expected that. He was in excruciating pain and hitting the drip button more often than he preferred. When he finally left the hospital I heaved a heavy sigh of relief for I'd really wondered if he was going to leave.