My mom has proven to be my biggest supporter through everything. She never missed a doctor appointment or a PET scan. When I got admitted to the hospital, she admitted herself too. She stayed by my side for those five days every time.
She laughed with me, she cried with me and she sat there quietly when I would yell and become frustrated. She showed me without telling me that she would always be there and that she would never leave my side. Here is an open letter from her: You have so much to offer Emily and I've told you all this before. You are strong and courageous and to be able to go through all you've gone through and come out stronger and tougher. That is where the true story is. It is a sad reality that people who are not affected by something will go on with their life and not give your situation a second thought. It's those who wake up every day and their first thought is the unfortunate situation that is going on in their life, they are the ones living a life they didn't ask for. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about you. The fears you have. The emotions you go through daily. The struggles. I think about all of this every day. And I pray to God every day that He place a bubble around you to keep you from any harm. To protect you. Yes I ask him this every day. I love you Em. --- I love you mom.
1 Comment
All I have ever wanted is to be treated normal.
I do everything in my power to appear normal. I wear a wig. I fill in my sparse eyebrows. I hide my emotions. I cover the scars from my PICC lines. I even sometimes cover up the vein on my chest that still pops out from when I had the mass. I don't tell classmates or acquaintances what has happened to me. I attend all of my classes as a full time student. I am working hard to catch up and finish my 80 placement hours before I graduate. I got back into my job. I give off an illusion that every thing is fine--everything is back to normal. I am busting my ass and spreading my self thin. But maybe I am not ready. I have found out that this can be extremely dangerous to my mental health. Giving off this fallacy that I am fine has actually made me hurt more than I could imagine. I am more sensitive than I ever pictured myself being. Things that never would have even phased me before bother me tremendously. If a friend is rude or unsympathetic, I say nothing. I act as I would have acted before--unaffected. But in reality, this triggers and emotional explosion inside of me that winds me down into a dark place that is hard to get out of. I have so much stress in my life. I am so sick of being stressed. I have a PET scan coming up on Thursday, a rigorous course load in school, and the last thing I ever thought I would have to deal with is wishing I had someone to support me through it all. I do have people that continue to help me, and they know who they are, but I guess I just thought by this age I would have more friends that I could rely on, especially after all of this. I may appear to be fine, but I'm not. I am still emotionally and physically traumatized from what I have gone through in the past 6 months. Traumatized is an understatement. All I want is for someone to tell me they are proud of me. I can't tell you how much that would mean to me. For someone to just tell me they care. To be there for me all the time, not just when I ask for help. I want to be fine. I want to be normal. But in reality, I'm just not. I would not say that I have ever been super religious. I was lucky to have parents that raised me with a strong religious foundation as a young child, but I was too young to really understand. After a while, life got busy and we started going less and less.
Despite this, I have always had a strong personal relationship with God. Through the hardest times of my life, I looked forward to going to bed so I could talk to Him and pray to Him. He was there for me during those times and truly got me through what felt like the longest days. A lot of people who face life's challenges often blame God. Whether it is a loss of a loved one, or a diagnosis of cancer, people tend to turn on God. They don't understand how He could possibly do such a thing. I never reacted that way. From the second I found out, I never turned on God; I never asked Him, "Why me?" I had a deep, spiritual feeling that this was put in my life not to kill me, but to help me. Sure, it is cliche, but I truly do think things happen for a reason. I knew that this was a part of my plan. I didn't blame God for it. Oddly enough, however, I didn't feel as connected to God throughout this experience. For the first time in my life, I couldn't pray to Him. It was like there was a wall or a block preventing me from communicating. I tried a few times, and words simply did not come out. I didn't know what to say, and I actually felt awkward. I always wondered why this was so. Why would I not be able to reach Him during the time you would think I need Him the most? But I could feel Him there with me throughout my journey nonetheless. Many times, I think about my life now compared to how it was before. Sure, I often dwell on and crave the normalcy that defined my life before my diagnosis, but is "normal" necessarily good? I feel as though now I enjoy my life so much more than before. I appreciate the small things in life. I look at a "normal" day as something spectacular, and think about how grateful I am for the days that I am not weak or in pain. I look forward to my future, knowing that I can take my experiences to help other people. |