real life.

yes real life does exist. sometimes i pretend it doesn't. i like it better that way. but real life has a way of making you face it, so i think i will. on this blog. because everyone that actually reads this blog already knows all about it.

as you've read my daddy is amazing. he is also sick. with chrones disease. when i was little and eager to figure out exactly what chrones disease was i asked me daddy. he told me it's like having canker sores all over the inside of your intestines. plus you feel flu achy all the time. and tired. YUCK. it still gives me stomach aches thinking about it. not as bad as back then, but still.

my daddy had this disease long before him and mom had me. about the time my mom was pregnant with my older sister is when he was diagnosed. when he was 21 or 22. i'm not sure which, but still that is very young to find out you'll be sick all your life. but that's the thing. most people with chrones aren't sick ALL their life. i mean they ALWAYS have chrones, but not always so sick. they have flare ups and remissions. that's how their life is. i think my daddy's been in one constant flare up for at least the last 15 years. he's had numerous surgeries and more pain than i EVER want to comprehend. and it's hard. for him obviously. but for me too. to see him go through that. it makes me so sad. and so proud. he's such a strong daddy.

but more than sad, it makes ME strong. i have a firm belief that i would not be anywhere close to who i am without this trial in mine and my family's life. yes it is my daddy's trial. but it's ours too. and we've all grown so much through it. it amazes me that not one of us has decided that life is too cruel to believe in a God. we all KNOW our Heavenly Father is there. that he loves us. that he sent his perfect son, our perfect brother, to die for us. to rescue us from sin. from anguish. from sickness. from chrones. i love this gospel and don't know where i'd be without it. i know everyone says they 'don't know where they would be without it', but the truth is i don't want to think about where i'd be without it. life would suck.

now here is the thing. i've always accepted chrones as part of my daddy's physical makeup. it is part of who he is and the only daddy i've ever know is a daddy with chrones. it's been hard, but it's been ok. cause i knew it was only for now and i cry every time i think about how amazing heaven will be with my daddy all better. so chrones, i got it down. it's ok. what i never imagined having to accept was any more sick. at least not in my daddy. doesn't he have his fair share? and yet i always knew more was coming sometime. a while ago they found a mass in his lungs. that's a big red flag. so they checked it out. i was sure it was cancer. i was sure he would have to go through all that lung cancer comes with. the pain, the chemo, the end. but then...it wasn't. he was fine. but now they've found masses in his throat.

thyroid cancer. it doesn't matter how "curable" a cancer is. the fact that it says cancer is the scariest thing in the world. daddy has now been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. part of me knew this was coming, but all of me is still scared to death and having a really hard time accepting it. he has to get surgery. next monday. they are going to take out yet another piece of my daddy and try to fit the rest of the pieces back together to see if it works better. his thyroid will be bye bye. and maybe his lymph nodes too. if the cancer has spread there. then they will biopsy the lung mass that has been 'no big deal' for years.

and i'm scared. more scared than i have been for any of his many other surgeries. those were all for chrones. i can handle chrones. i've been handling chrones for 19 years. but this cancer thing. this is new. this is unknown territory. this is something i don't know how to handle yet. and it shows. at the worst possible times. like in the movie theater when watching last song with hil and kenz. figures that a movie about a girl finding out her dad has cancer and learning to deal with it would completely set me off. so i cried. correction i sobbed. in a movie theater. next to two dear girls who didn't need to see that and in front of a couple who had no idea why i was so hysterical.

i'm a person of pattern. chrones had a pattern. he got sick, he got hospitalized, he would need surgery. and i would turn to my Savior and my Father and everything would be ok. this cancer thing breaks the pattern. it's not even part of the pattern. it's like a black thread in gold silk. it's all wrong. maybe that is why i'm having a harder time than i've ever had in turning. i know everything that anyone will tell me. the 'it will be ok's' and 'God loves yous'. but knowing doesn't make it easier.

see what i'm saying? real life...not as fun as pretend.