The surgery and C word blues

When my co-podcaster Jessica Freely told me that she was going to need another surgery, I already knew that Thursday Euclid, my cowriter and podcaster and BFF was headed for surgery. I joked, OMG I’M NEXT! Because we all know these things come in threes and while I had an inkling of what was to come, my mind wasn’t there yet.

Last night I learned that my mother is in stage 4 of colorectal cancer. It’s spread to her lymph nodes and lungs. Today she’s getting a port put in, Monday she starts chemo. Not that anyone wants to drag such things out, but damn.

So Monday Thursday will be having his surgery and my mother will be enjoying the first of many chemo cocktails and I will be… squirming, I guess. I can’t really put my finger on how I feel because it is shocking and when I don’t know how to feel I just go straight to numb with occasional bouts of wanting to scream.

Beyond that, it’s not my surgery or my cocktail of poison to swallow. Mostly I feel useless, but I also know that if it were my responsibility I’d feel panicked. So I try to focus on being easy to talk to, trying to stay up and sunny. Take my medicine on time so I don’t get swamped with migraines… if that can be helped.

I don’t really know how this will affect me or things. When I lost my dad so suddenly and my BFF I spent a lot of time with online friends and started writing. I don’t anticipate losing my BFF, but I am girding my loins that we are nearing the end of my mother’s timeline.

It’s still early for most, I guess. She had me late, but all of my grandparents made fairly quick exits, so I guess that’s just a thing we do. The party hits a lull and we make a French exit.