I've been here a week. And I'm definitely the wrong person for this job.
I came to St. Louis a week early so I could help out with my dad's cancer treatments. It didn't start off well. When my parents pulled up to the curb at the St. Louis Airport, I could tell immediately that my dad was altered. He couldn't hold his neck straight and he was in so much pain.
I wanted to do everything I could to help, I really want to help out. But the very next morning, as I offered to help out with dad's breakfast, he started harping on me about not cutting his orange right. He turned to my mom and said, "Can't you give simple instructions?" I had been considering staying for several months to help out, after that comment, I reconsidered.
Taking Bianca out of her kindergarten and putting her in a kindergarten in Columbia would be hard, but doable. Putting my writing on halt, and hoping they'd still want me in February or March would be hard, but doable. Finding a new OBGYN while I'm here would be more expensive and a little bit of a hassle, but doable. Finding someone to watch my dog while I'm here and Eric's in India would be a task, but again Doable. But not being appreciated is hard for me.
I've been driving dad to work every day. Sticking around while he gets some stuff done at the office. Taking him to radiation treatments and MRIs at St. Anthony's Hospital about a half an hour away, and he's always giving me "constructive criticism" about how I should drive--which lane I should be in, and when I should drive slower or faster. It's grating me. I wish I could let it slide. After all, I know he's on morphine and percoset for the pain and he's not feeling well. And I'm trying.
But I'm just not optimistic about what's going to happen here. I feel like life's kicked me around so much, I don't expect much. My dad, on the other hand, does. His doctor told him that one out of one hundred cancer patients are healed not by any medical way, but just a miraculous healing. The radiation isn't supposed to kill the cancer; it's supposed to help with his shoulder pain. The chemotherapy pills he's taking aren't supposed to kill the cancer; there's just a 40 percent chance it will stop the progress of the cancer. The outcome looks bleak. But he's so enthusiastic that he thinks he'll get this miraculous healing.
I wish I could agree, but I can't. I just stay quiet. I worry that he'll lose all hope if he doesn't get this miraculous healing. He's expecting it now. And I'm not. Why would God let me keep my dad?
Yesterday, my dad had a brain MRI. The doctors think the cancer is in his spinal cord (hence, his stoop and being unable to hold his neck up). They think it may have spread to his brain. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen.
My sister Susannah's moving out here now. Looks like she'll take over, and they won't need me anymore. I should be relieved, grateful, something. But I can't feel.
I wish I had no presents to buy. I wish Christmas just wouldn't come this year. I wish we could just wallow in our misery. Maybe he'll get a Christmas present--a miraculous Christmas healing. But I'm not optimistic, and I'm not expecting it.
Call me realistic, call me pessimistic, call me a scrooge.
