One of the things that came up when we got pregnant is how to explain my dad to our children. I lost my dad at the age of seventeen to lymphoma (www.lymphoma.org) and somehow I wanted to incorporate him into our children's lives. This blog is not just to help the parents explain something similar to their kids but also for the people who are struggling with cancer, those that have loved ones with cancer, those that beat cancer, and even those of you who do not have cancer and know nobody with cancer. It is to share my story and hopefully touch the lives of others and help people who are struggling with ways to deal with such an awful disease. I would love for people to share their stories on this blog, suggest sights for people who wish to donate or support the cure for cancer, and to really take into heart my personal story with such a hard subject.
When I was seven years old my mom and my dad were in the middle of a divorce. I did not know at the time that my dad had also just found out he had cancer and to be honest I don't even know when I found out. He moved out and we moved on. My mom struggled, being a single parent, and for most of my teen-age years I shared a room with her. My brother got the other room because he was older and a male. We went from apartment to apartment while my mom worked two jobs and my aunt babysat us. My dad stayed in Oregon and saw us when he could. My dad became a very heavy drinker. (www.alcoholismtreatmentcenters.com if you or somebody you know has a drinking problem there is help out there. Use your resources and don't let this awful disease take you away from those around you)
My dad also smoked cigarettes like nobodys business. He would pick my brother and I up and I remember trying to hold my breath for as long as I could so I would not have to smell the cigarettes pouring out of the ashtray right next to the open can of Coors. Don't get me wrong, my dad was not a terrible dad this was just his way of coping with the fact that he was very sick. Being as young as I was at the time my family tried to protect me by not telling me the seriousness of my fathers illness. It was not until I was seventeen (ten years after) that my family ended up having to tell me because my dad was in the hospital getting a brain tumor removed. I can't tell you how this made me feel except it made me hurt on the inside that nobody had told me, they had guarded me from the truth and now here I was, at the age of seventeen, waiting for the doctors to cut open my dads head. Even then nobody told me really what was going on. My dad was so strong. He came out of surgery just fine. He made jokes with me to cheer me up, he was released from the hospital and I thought that everything was going to be fine. I remember the last ten days of my dads life better then anything else. We went shopping and my dad was walking very slow. He was stubborn as a mule though and would not let me help him. I remember him picking up a milk carton and dropping it in the middle of the floor. He tried to pick it up but couldn't make it and he seemed embarrassed by this. I don't think he wanted his daughter to see him so vulnerable. It was right then, when the milk hit the floor, that I knew something bad was about to happen. Three days later my dad was in the hospital and this time my family finally decided to let me know that he was not going to be coming out of the hospital.
"Stay strong" my mom said. They all decided to pretend he was not dying so I would go visit and my dad would help me with my math. I went to school and then the hospital. My dad got more weak every day I saw him and my heart was breaking. I can not tell you in words what it is like to see your parent dying. There are no words. I wanted it to go away. I prayed to god every night asking him to not take my dad. Unfortunately this was one prayer that could not be answered. The last time I saw my dad he was laying on his bed. I took his hand in mine and sat there, the rain falling outside as if the whole world was crying. In my mind I knew I could no longer go back. I was folding inside and I wanted an escape. I didn't want to see my dad in pain and I think he knew this. He went to pick up a magazine and the whole stack fell off his night table, as the stack fell my heart broke, and I opened my tears up to everyone who could see them. I called my mom and told her that I couldn't do it. i was scared, I was upset, i was sad, I was angry, and I was dying on the inside right along with my dad. My mom told me to say my good-byes.
I remember the night he passed away as one of the worst nights of my life. I needed a break (which sounds selfish of course, considering) so myself and three of my girlfriends met at our local hangout Applebees (www.applebees.com). We ordered and a server came up to tell me I had a phone call. I did not want to go answer because I just knew and I was right. I rushed home and my mom and brother were there to take me into their arms. We sat in the driveway for a long time and just cried. My dad was alone for the first time in ten days and had passed away with nobody in the room with him.
I struggled so much with this news that I abandoned my life. I no longer talked to my uncle on my dads side, I pushed away friends, I pushed away god, and I wanted nothing to do with anyone. I blamed myself for my dad dying alone. I hated god for taking him. I didn't want to talk to anyone and I became very self destructive on the inside. It took me ten years to realize that I was so lucky to have this man as my dad for the seventeen years that I had him. He taught me to be strong, I inherited his stubbornness, his laugh and his smile was contagious, and the bond we shared was unbreakable. Even with death I know that my dad is a part of me no matter where I go. There are so many regrets when someone dies, the what ifs, the I should haves, and the why didn't I's but you can't beat yourself up for life on what you could have done. The past is unchangeable but the future is key. The biggest impact my dads death had on me was all the regret it caused. My mom wished she had of known and not divorced him, my brother wished he could have cared for my dad more, I wished that I hadn't thrown years of my life away by blaming the world for my dads death. Ten years and I realized I couldn't hide forever and he was never going to come back. I talked to my uncle (his brother) for the first time in years. I told my brother how proud dad would be of him, I asked my brother to walk me down the aisle in place of my dad, and now I am at the point where I need to explain to my kids who their grandpa is.
I asked for advice from friends and family. Some said that there is no reason for them to know, but to me there is no way of not telling them. It's a major part of me, it helped make me who I am today and someday down the road I am sure I will see some of my dad in my children. Another person told me take my kids to a funeral parlor and explain it to them like that. Many people told me to wait until they are teenagers. However, I found that I want my kids to grow up knowing who he is. I can't possibly take down all the pictures of my dad in fear of them asking who he is. I can't erase my dad from my life until my kids become teen-agers, and I really wanted them to grow up knowing him. It's hard enough not having him here to hold them or play with them. Finally I came up with my own plan. Right now I always show my son a picture of my dad and tell him "grandpa". He is only one but I figure this will help him put a face to a name and help in the long run. When he starts to understand things then I am going to tell him that god needs us a little early sometimes and that god needed his grandpa Rick to be an angel. I would let them know that grandpa Rick is their guardian angel and that way they have the freedom to ask me questions about who he was, what he was like, and along the way explain heaven. I know there are many out there who do not believe in god but I really, without pushing, would like my kids to believe in him.There were many times that I questioned why god was doing something and even though I don't have the answers to everything I feel blessed by the people who are in my life now and knowing that he will always be close. These past few years are the years that I started accepting what happened. There will always be days that are rough like my wedding day, holidays, birth of children, etc. but I have found that god blessed me with a beautiful family to get through those rough times. Eventually I plan on spending some time doing fund raisers for cancer awareness and having my children participate so that they know the importance of giving. I hope this helped some of you through some part of life or touched your hearts for other reasons.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
How it all began............
When I was a little girl I always pictured my knight riding in on his white horse, stealing me away to his castle where he would love and pamper me for the rest of my life. Forget the white picket fence and dog in the yard.........I wanted a castle. My dreams of becoming a princess who was pampered in love were broken by my brother, three years older, and his friends who asked me if I knew what a blow job was. Being the ripe age of fifteen I told him of course I knew what one was. When he asked me how many times I had given one, I wanted to sound like a pro, I said hundreds. I mean really, how hard could something called a b.j. be? I immediately wanted to know what exactly this meant and ran to my mom to ask her......needless to say I never got my answer, I never gave a hundred of them, and I realized that my prince was not going to come riding up on a horse. Instead reality hit and I dated the toads that lived under the castle in the pond scum.
Three years ago, a guy did come into my life who caught my attention. We became good friends and every time he tried I would not let him kiss me. I was dating a guy who is the example of what to much drinking can do to you. I didn't realize if you have to drink to just be around someone then you should probably put the drink down and not date him. My first hint should have been the leather vest and the bald spot but he paid for my shots of goldschlager so I was happy. When I met Mike, the guy who I became good friends with, he tried to kiss me over and over and I denied him every single time. Then I went over to his house one day and he didn't even try to kiss me, I got home that night (very irratated) and text him asking why he had not tried to kiss me and he said because you won't let me. My response: I would have let you tonight. Now I know why men will never understand women even though I am one. Three years ago, after many ups and downs that will have to be another blog, my husband and I got married. Three months later we got pregnant. I was ecstatic to become a mom and feared for my life at the same time. I went out and bought What to Expect While Expecting (http://www.whattoexpect.com/) and Your Pregnancy Week by Week(http://www.yourpregnancybook.com/) and looked at them constantly. They were both amazing books to have and I would/have given the advice to friends to read them but no book is going to tell you what google does (http://www.google.com/).
While I was pregnant I was constantly googling. I googled on if I would die, if I had a c section what would the outcome look like, could they drug me up as much as possible, what every kick, stretch and pull was, what to do if my water broke, what dialation looked like, the list goes on for ages. The sad thing is that nobody warned me not to google. I googled like crazy and one night started crying. My husband asked me what was wrong and I told him I did not want the Red Ring of Fire. He just stared at me for a minute and said "it's okay, the x-box will be back soon." This made me cry harder. My husbands x-box happened to have the "Red Ring of Death" and he was waiting for it to come back. By the way ladies, if the worst thing your husband does is play x-box, let him. He wandered around like a lost puppy dog the whole two weeks it was gone. Anyways, as I sat there crying my husband wanted an explanation so I had to tell him it was what ladies call it when they are crowning and thier va-j-j is crowning. My husband is not a man of many words so instead he blocked me from googling anything else. Little did he know that I had already googled every last tid bit about child birth that I could and repeatedly told him how down there was going to tear, I was going to die, and he would be stuck as a single dad. I went to the hospital when I didn't know what was going on just to be told everything was fine. There were times when I felt no movement for two hours and was convinced that something was wrong. It wasn't.
Our little boy Kaden was born on Sept. 1st of 2009. The little guy was ten days late and he wanted to stay in mommys belly forever so they had to induce labor. When I got to the maternity ward and settled into my bed I heard this high pitched wail from the room next to me and was convinced the lady was going to die. I asked the nurse and she told me that is what happens when you do not use drugs. More power to the people who don't but god made them so I will take them. The lady in the next room confirmed that I wanted every drug possible. As labor came on my mom and step-dad came, my brother, his crazy ex girlfriend, my aunt, my uncle, and my two best friends. After about ten hours none of us had anything to talk about and so they just stared at me like a circus animal about to do tricks. Finally, the doc came in and turned off my pitocen for four hours so that I could sleep and everyone went home. Everyone came back the next day and it was back to staring. I got my epidural and really, ladies, you have nothing to worry about. The worst part about getting my epidural was that I was paralyzed from the waist down and couldn't control my gas so there we were, the whole family quiet, with my farts to fill the silence. Most ladies know that pregnant gas is far worse then regular gas but don't worry, it's normal (google again). By fourty hours of labor my doctor came in and told me I was swelling back up so baby would not come out on his own. We had to have a c-section. I was terrified. I remember laying there, shaking, knowing I was going to die, and scared out of my mind. Kaden was born shortly after and with the first cry I knew that everything was going to be just fine. It took awhile to recover but finally our little boy had arrived.
I am not going to go into every detail after because this is already a long blog. I had nurses at the hospital who tried to show me how to breast feed by shoving my breasts all over the place. I wanted to cry, my husband laughed, baby cried because he was hungry and when they told me it was time to go home I did not know what I was in for. However, I can tell you, it is so worth it. If you have the right guy in your life (I will share a blog on Teen Mom shortly) then it is so worth it (even if you are a single mom........but prepared). There is no way to describe the feeling of seeing your baby come into the world. I finally understood what my mom went through raising us on her own. My lfe since Kaden was born has changed tremendously and I thank god every day for givng me an amazing son. I won't lie, there are times that I want to pull my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs but it's all a part of being a mom.
Three months after Kaden was born we became pregnant again. I am due wtih our little girl in Nov. and we have no idea what we are in for. That is the reason for me beginning to blog. Some of my stories will make you cry, some will make you laugh, and some will be unbelieveable but it's my story and I want it to touch everyone out there, men, women, children, moms, sister, wives, brothers, friends. I am a writer at heart and I hope that by writing this it will reach out and make someone smile, laugh or cry with me. Please follow along on this journey with me and allow me to be a part of your life.
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Three years ago, a guy did come into my life who caught my attention. We became good friends and every time he tried I would not let him kiss me. I was dating a guy who is the example of what to much drinking can do to you. I didn't realize if you have to drink to just be around someone then you should probably put the drink down and not date him. My first hint should have been the leather vest and the bald spot but he paid for my shots of goldschlager so I was happy. When I met Mike, the guy who I became good friends with, he tried to kiss me over and over and I denied him every single time. Then I went over to his house one day and he didn't even try to kiss me, I got home that night (very irratated) and text him asking why he had not tried to kiss me and he said because you won't let me. My response: I would have let you tonight. Now I know why men will never understand women even though I am one. Three years ago, after many ups and downs that will have to be another blog, my husband and I got married. Three months later we got pregnant. I was ecstatic to become a mom and feared for my life at the same time. I went out and bought What to Expect While Expecting (http://www.whattoexpect.com/) and Your Pregnancy Week by Week(http://www.yourpregnancybook.com/) and looked at them constantly. They were both amazing books to have and I would/have given the advice to friends to read them but no book is going to tell you what google does (http://www.google.com/).
While I was pregnant I was constantly googling. I googled on if I would die, if I had a c section what would the outcome look like, could they drug me up as much as possible, what every kick, stretch and pull was, what to do if my water broke, what dialation looked like, the list goes on for ages. The sad thing is that nobody warned me not to google. I googled like crazy and one night started crying. My husband asked me what was wrong and I told him I did not want the Red Ring of Fire. He just stared at me for a minute and said "it's okay, the x-box will be back soon." This made me cry harder. My husbands x-box happened to have the "Red Ring of Death" and he was waiting for it to come back. By the way ladies, if the worst thing your husband does is play x-box, let him. He wandered around like a lost puppy dog the whole two weeks it was gone. Anyways, as I sat there crying my husband wanted an explanation so I had to tell him it was what ladies call it when they are crowning and thier va-j-j is crowning. My husband is not a man of many words so instead he blocked me from googling anything else. Little did he know that I had already googled every last tid bit about child birth that I could and repeatedly told him how down there was going to tear, I was going to die, and he would be stuck as a single dad. I went to the hospital when I didn't know what was going on just to be told everything was fine. There were times when I felt no movement for two hours and was convinced that something was wrong. It wasn't.
Our little boy Kaden was born on Sept. 1st of 2009. The little guy was ten days late and he wanted to stay in mommys belly forever so they had to induce labor. When I got to the maternity ward and settled into my bed I heard this high pitched wail from the room next to me and was convinced the lady was going to die. I asked the nurse and she told me that is what happens when you do not use drugs. More power to the people who don't but god made them so I will take them. The lady in the next room confirmed that I wanted every drug possible. As labor came on my mom and step-dad came, my brother, his crazy ex girlfriend, my aunt, my uncle, and my two best friends. After about ten hours none of us had anything to talk about and so they just stared at me like a circus animal about to do tricks. Finally, the doc came in and turned off my pitocen for four hours so that I could sleep and everyone went home. Everyone came back the next day and it was back to staring. I got my epidural and really, ladies, you have nothing to worry about. The worst part about getting my epidural was that I was paralyzed from the waist down and couldn't control my gas so there we were, the whole family quiet, with my farts to fill the silence. Most ladies know that pregnant gas is far worse then regular gas but don't worry, it's normal (google again). By fourty hours of labor my doctor came in and told me I was swelling back up so baby would not come out on his own. We had to have a c-section. I was terrified. I remember laying there, shaking, knowing I was going to die, and scared out of my mind. Kaden was born shortly after and with the first cry I knew that everything was going to be just fine. It took awhile to recover but finally our little boy had arrived.
I am not going to go into every detail after because this is already a long blog. I had nurses at the hospital who tried to show me how to breast feed by shoving my breasts all over the place. I wanted to cry, my husband laughed, baby cried because he was hungry and when they told me it was time to go home I did not know what I was in for. However, I can tell you, it is so worth it. If you have the right guy in your life (I will share a blog on Teen Mom shortly) then it is so worth it (even if you are a single mom........but prepared). There is no way to describe the feeling of seeing your baby come into the world. I finally understood what my mom went through raising us on her own. My lfe since Kaden was born has changed tremendously and I thank god every day for givng me an amazing son. I won't lie, there are times that I want to pull my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs but it's all a part of being a mom.
Three months after Kaden was born we became pregnant again. I am due wtih our little girl in Nov. and we have no idea what we are in for. That is the reason for me beginning to blog. Some of my stories will make you cry, some will make you laugh, and some will be unbelieveable but it's my story and I want it to touch everyone out there, men, women, children, moms, sister, wives, brothers, friends. I am a writer at heart and I hope that by writing this it will reach out and make someone smile, laugh or cry with me. Please follow along on this journey with me and allow me to be a part of your life.
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