a testament to my time in therapy

So I started nursing school for real-real last month.  I knew it wasn't going to be easy, even without the added complications of everything going on with Sid, and the acting out from Spagett, and the stress of walking into a giant unknown as Sid is medically retired from the Navy...

I thought I knew what I was getting into.  And I was wrong.

I barely passed my first exam.  BUT I PASSED.  However, on my first summative skills check-off, I failed.  At first, I felt all right about it: I get the chance to redo, so it's not the end of the world, right?  RIGHT?!  But when I started to talk to one of my old professors about it, I burst into tears.  Right there in the middle of a crowded hallway, dressed in my uniform, I cried like a wiener.  It was the culmination of all that's come before: Sid's cancer, everything.  And it went on and on.  I went to see our nursing retention coordinator and sobbed in her office for probably an hour.

One thing she said that really stuck with me was that there are student nurses who come into her office in a worse state than me, and they don't have nearly as much bullshit going on in their personal lives.  She said that I was holding it together admirably, that she actually didn't even know how I was managing the amount of stress I must be experiencing.  I told her it must be a testament to my time in therapy, and she laughed.

I walked out of her office, not exactly feeling better, but feeling as though I wasn't fighting this uphill battle alone.  School has only been in session for a month, and I'm already blown away by the support I'm receiving from my professors - old and new -  and my fellow students.  It's been amazing and humbling and inspirational.

Nursing school isn't what I expected at all.  In some ways it's a lot better, and in some ways it's a lot worse.  I can't even imagine what next semester will be like, and truthfully, I'm trying not to think about that when there's so much going on right now.

this wasn't supposed to happen

Sid had an endoscopy done last month, something to do with checking his upper GI tract and GERD and stomach lining and blah.  I don't recall the exact reasons why he had the procedure done.  What is important about this endoscopy is that the doctors found something in his duodenum that shouldn't have been there and they biopsied it.

It is cancer.

We found out yesterday that Sid has cancer.  Specifically, follicular lymphoma.

I will never forget the way the air left my lungs when I heard those words.  I will never forget the way I stood there, looking at him, and he had not heard a single word the doctor had said.  "What's that?" he whispered to me, and I was too stunned to work up the breath to respond.  I mouthed back, "cancer."  He cried.  I didn't.  I still haven't.  I don't know if I can.  It doesn't even feel real.

I went to the grocery store today and felt like everyone would be able to see that I was absolutely shattered.  Like, look at this woman pretending to be normal!  Who does she think she's fooling?  I put things in the cart because that's what you do at the grocery store, but I wasn't paying much attention to what I picked up. I tried to remember that Sid had asked me to get ramen, and Spagett wanted dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, and we needed more coffee. And the whole time, I'm inside my own head screaming WHO THE FUCK CARES, SID HAS CANCER.  People asked me how I was doing and I said "fine" because that is what you say when someone asks, but I am not fine.  I am a mess on the inside.  I don't know how I'm supposed to finish my report this weekend and do my take home exam and go to school on Monday like there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

All I know is that this wasn't supposed to happen.  It wasn't supposed to be like this.  But it did, and it is.