I have had plenty of opportunities to call the University of New Mexico medical center and go through the steps I have to take before Dave's Surprise Cancer Doctor will talk to me.
I haven't done a thing, except for listen to people tell me stories of how people they knew, too, either "bravely" hid a terminal diagnosis from their families, or else denied the bad news was even an option. "You're wrong, doc. I'm never going to die. I feel great."
I don't want to hear either answer. I strongly suspect it's the second one, a manic belief he was going to cheat death again, because he was Death Defying Dave.
Or else it's a third option, something I'll be blindsided by. What I need before I can hear that is courage. I have to stop saying that I can't call because I'm busy with work, Albuquerque is an hour behind us. If I call at 5:00 it's only 4:00 there.
More, I need to stop wallowing in this anger, skip bargaining and depression, and move on to acceptance.
Just because I think you are amazing .....about this statement " I need to stop wallowing in this anger, skip bargaining and depression, and move on to acceptance." Hogswallow. Family deaths (or probably death of anyone you know) are hard and sad and depressing and infuriating and so sad. And because you are human, you get to take time to feel all the feelings and think all the thoughts good ones and bad one. And only then do you get to move on.
So let them wash over you or jam right up in your face. It will take more months and then slowly you will feel the bands loosening. You are going along at a normal pace and you are amazing. Be kind to yourself. It has been a brutal few months.
Posted by: kate | December 18, 2022 at 09:24 AM
... yeah. Not feeling lucid, but previous-kate commenter hit it squarely.
Be kind to yourself, please. Many hugs to you.
Posted by: KC | December 18, 2022 at 11:52 AM
Kate - Thank you, Kate. I think you are right: I have to give myself time, especially when this is a person Ive known all my life. In fact, he was the last person I've known all my life who was alive, so that should take extra time.
KC - Thanks to you, too. Is there a reason you aren't lucid? That was a worrisome statement.
Posted by: theQueen | December 19, 2022 at 06:09 PM
Sorry, did not mean to be worrisome! Multi-day headache (I had an allergy-based sinus headache plus a water retention headache plus a mystery postural headache) was not leaving me with a lot of coherent words, so I tried a couple of times to produce words that were any good at all, and then gave up and wrote that instead..
Besides, she really did cover the bases well!
(with the exception of, yes, that additional Repository of Full-Length Collaborative Memory position Dave filled to some limited degree; and losing the only ones who remember things with you is a really, really hard thing that makes identity feel wobbly/transitory)(so: extra grief, and extra-weird grief, potentially, may pop up. And also any leftover grief you haven't dealt with previously may tag itself along on this round; that also sometimes happens. Just, if you feel like you are going through the Alice in Wonderland of the significance of really weird things enlarging and shrinking and then ballooning again without apparent reason or recourse, that is normal and also grief counseling may be a good and useful thing to hunt down, if a good-match counselor can be found; but I am not sure how challenging that would be.)
(Now we're down to only fractions of the sinus headache and the positional headache and I am about as verbose as normal, whether for good or ill. Lucid or not... hm.)
Posted by: KC | December 20, 2022 at 11:37 AM
KC - glad to hear you're better.
Posted by: theQueen | December 22, 2022 at 05:51 AM