Victim of Cancer

Do not fight the emotions. So many people during the course after my father passed away claimed that things would be better in a year. WRONG. Things were not better, I did not forget about the hardships and the love of my dad, my father was not a figment of my imagination that now only existed in the deep chambers of my mind after a year.

After a year, everything that had happened still felt so real and fresh, i remember thinking it would change, I remember thinking to myself and yelling at God,

OK I have had enough, its time to stop this and bring my father back.

The most memorable experience was when I was working at a restaurant for a part time job over the summer. I was having a rough time, my fathers two year anniversary was fast approaching and I had seen a dad and son out to dinner together and it just frustrated me, I felt robbed, I felt my time was not enough, I felt that I was short changed and I should have been the one to be out to dinner with my father, seeing him laugh and enjoying life and I could have been the son out to eat with his dad, enjoying the moment and his company.

I started to cry, I was upset and I needed a break, something to get out of the whirlwind I felt I was spinning in. I asked my manger for a break with tears running down my face. My manger looks at me and says …

Why are you still upset. Its been almost two years

Those words ring in my memory like the day my father passed away. I was so taken back, those words even came from a man who lost his father, so I would have assumed he would be more compassionate to me. I felt insulted and not worthy of the grime that layer my shirt. I remember walking away, crying, furiously upset over my father and the fact that I thought there was something wrong with me still missing him. I felt for days like I was wrong, like I was a outcast, like I should not mention this because people would think that I am weird for still mourning or that I was using my fathers death as an excuse to get out of work or something. I felt like a terrible person.

My managers word pierced my heart and soul. It took so long to get over that. Now I know better, my emotions were fine, in fact, the fact that I still remember my father and miss him so dearly I think is a great thing. However, being young and insecure and uncertain I thought there was really something wrong with me.

The hardest days for me had to be when I would lift my 127 pound father in and out of my car because he was too weak and the pain was too much to sit down by himself. By this point he was getting sick all day, throwing up every hour or so from the chemo.

Chemo, the cure is worse than the cancer I feel.

But I would help him in and out, and I just could not take it. It was so painful, one because this was my father, a man that never showed his weakness to anyone other than my mother, because he was a strong willed person. And he did stay strong, he still got up every day for the whole year he was sick, even after getting chemo every Thursday, he went to work.

I respect my father more then he will ever know, He could have taken this chance at getting sick to stop working and providing and just look for sympathy from anybody or anywhere. NO, he stayed working. He got in the ring and went all 12 rounds with cancer, and when it came down to the score cards, I gave him the fight.

I never cried in front of my father either, it might seem silly now reflecting back on it, but if you were there and watching your father suffer, the tension was already so great, and his mind was full of so many evil thoughts, the least I could do was to help him by staying strong right beside him.

He called me his ‘2% guy’ I got that name because after he got diagnosed, the doctor said he had a 98% of not getting rid of the cancer. And I so bravely said at the,

‘so there is a 2% chance that he will’

When ever he was feeling down or especially sick, he would call me his 2%. I still remember him looking over at me during breaks, and saying that all he needed was his ‘2%’ guy to get through his cancer.

I thank God that I was strong enough not to breakdown when he called me that. It broke me into a million little pieces inside, however in a brighter light I knew that he was so proud of me and the 2% I brought with me helped him get through the day.

Here is a quick note to all those people reading this with out ever have known the experience that is cancer. Don’t ‘shh’ anyone willing to talk. That is key; the fact that somebody is willing to open this crevasse of their life to you is big. I only opened up to a select few, because I had been afraid of alienating or making my friends uncomfortable, which in turn would make me uncomfortable. Let me tell you though. It’s fine if you don’t know what to say. As a friend you are not there to say anything sometimes. In fact, I prefer just a person to talk to instead of bottling it all up inside of me, causing a ball of emotions stirring in me.

I went to one friend who would just allow me to cry, hug me and that’s it. Just the simple knowledge that I could open myself up with out fear of discomfort was very soothing. For me the best relationships are those where you can say anything you want to the other person, and the other person does not have to say anything

People are scared of what they don’t know. The fear of the unknown causes normal people to act in peculiar ways, maybe an awkward date encounter or the thrill of a haunted house, it’s the unknown that causes people to act awkward and not know how to deal with an event, except maybe ignoring it.

I don’t know how many times while my dad was alive living with stage five stomach cancer or even after he passed people would ask that closed ended question that only needed one quick answer to make them feel more comfortable around you.

how are you?

That question plagues me to this day almost three years after my father’s death. To me that question makes me so angry and furious I want to be like the Hulk, and just smash things. That question is like asking a person who just won the lottery how they feel. Or asking a person whose dog just got hit by a car how they feel

Oh I feel great.

The worst part is when you reply with anything other than ‘I’m ok.’ people get nervous and don’t know how to react. When people ask that question to me, what I really want to do is grab them with all my might and slap them across their face and yell

“IT SUCKS”.

Two words. “IT SUCKS” that is the only way to describe being a victim of cancer. There are no intelligent words that can soften the experience. My experience with cancer is that when discussing it, simplicity is bliss. Let me explain what I mean by that….

SIMPLICTY is bliss

When discussing this ‘taboo’ topic of cancer around a person or persons currently or have experienced this pain on earth, the topic hits more close to home and is more painful than they may let on. The hardest part is acting ordinary, a word that loses its definition because after these experiences that word will only be another sensitive subject that floats in air around you like a bee, waiting to sting you when you are not expecting it. The problem with cancer is that for the victims there are little outlets that are acceptable for venting, maybe only paying a therapists to talk to, even then you feel like a nuance to them.

In today’s society the less you impose on peoples lives about this touchy subject the better, people will offer there services ‘call me if you need anything?’ or ‘what can I do for you?’ However the truth of the matter is that these are only words that make people feel like they are doing their part to help you recover. So these people will talk to you, which now is a chore because the whole time they are terrified that you will bring up the big C word, making them uncomfortable, but they talk to you because its like doing charity work and they just say ten hail marys a day and talk to you once a week and they get bragging rights that they are helping you recover all the while they think they just secured their place in heaven

In my own experience with this, I said little, more like next to nothing about my pains and heartaches that plagued my family and myself on a daily basis. Because I learned that the less I said the better it was.

Never complained

Never cried

Never slowed down

Never stopped,

Never…never.. never. 

That was how my father lived.  He was an expert art stone mason, was for almost thirty years.  The best word to describe his attitude and beliefs was ‘Never’.  I ended up leaving my freshman year at college to work with him during the days because the doctor said that he could not be alone anymore, it was too risky. 
 
Hey doctor, you know what was risky, watching my dad drop in from 192 to 127 pounds in four months, that’s risky.
 
It hurt from the bottom, hurt through my soul watching my father feel so much pain but never stopping.  My Father could be described as the word ’Never’. All those he meet on jobs and out on the street, that is the word that would come across, but to me, me I knew the word on his lips, on my lips and my families lips was ‘pain’. 

“You have cancer” Those three words change a day, a week, a life and history. Its funny actually, when you first hear these damned words, its like getting a scrap on your knee, does not hurt right away, but once it sinks in a few minutes later, its so painful. I remember these cursed words like I remember hitting baseballs in little league and running around the neighborhood with my friends buying ice cream from the ice cream man or your first kiss from that girl that you never thought it would happen with. These ominous words are only a start on the roller coaster of hell called life after cancer.

After the doctor sat my mom, brother and myself down in front of my dad dressed in that dreadful hospital dress and wearing a smirk that shone form behind his bushy mustache that caused a quick sigh of relief to wash over me. I was naïve, or just plain dumb to think that just because my dad wore a smirk on his sun tanned 5 O clock shadowed face, things were going to be OK. I was wrong. Dead wrong. My father who was just 49 years old had been diagnosed with stage five stomach cancer. My father, who was training at the gym to be in a body building competition of men over 50. My father, a man who never drank or smoked his whole life. My father, a man I never have seen be sick. My father a man that I had never seen cry or let life get him down. My father, my father was diagnosed with a cancer that gave him six months to live.

I don’t even know how I fought back my tears in my eyes, probably because I wanted to be strong just like my dad, if he would not cry, than I would not cry. I never cried in front of my dad, it would make him feel so insecure and inadequate, he would think that he was not the same man he was. That would be completely wrong. In fact, with him battling stage five stomach cancer, I look up to him and think

Damn, I only wish I could have half the drive my father has when if I ever get sick, this man never slows down