It has been some time since I have last published anything, this due to the fact that I am lazy and I haven't had the time. It is my senior year now (Hell yeah!) and I thought, like every other 17-year-old, that this would be the best year yet, and that I would be living it up every moment I have. But I am currently sitting in a hospital room. Not because I am sick, I couldn't feel any better, but my father is going through tests, scans, and painfully long waits to see if he has Lymphoma (a cancer of the lymphocytes, a type of cell that forms part of the immune system) or if it could be some other form. Now Lymphoma is treatable and can be maintained for the rest of his life, but this whole situation is scary and nerve wracking and tiresome because the doctors are still not 100% sure what the true cause is.
To rewind my life back a couple of months, you would understand where I am coming from. My grandmother was also diagnosed with lung cancer and currently going through chemo and radiation treatments. The medicines were working and she was on the up, but we recently found out that she has more polyps that have began to grow in her brain. We knew that the cancer would eventually come back, and we as a family prepared for the worst. However, we never thought it would come back this fast. She has to continue radiation and chemo, but in the hopes that everything will once again subside and she will get back to "normal." Whatever normal is anymore.
That is a funny concept to me. We often wish for things to "go back to normal" when it feels like our lives are slipping through our fingers; but what is 'normal'? It could be a daily routine one always follows, or getting back to the grind of everyday life. I don't recall a recent time when I could honestly say my life was normal. Normal is for those who know where they want to go, what they want to accomplish, who they want to be; as for me? I have no idea. Ever since I got the call that Granny (my grandmother) was being rushed to the hospital, and that she may have lung cancer, I haven't been normal. I guess I never truly was until I noticed how different I have become. Not to say I am depressed, but I feel like I can't have any affect on anything I try to help fix. It is as if I am invisible and screaming the solution to a problem, but no one can hear. Or they can hear, but just don't want to listen. Maybe that does sound a tad depressing, but how am I supposed to change how I feel? I've tried to mask my anxiety, tried to hide the fact that I am going to shatter at any moment because I have always been the one to look out for my family and be the support that they need in a time or hardship. I like to believe that I was hardwired at birth to look out for others and care for those closest to me, but to be honest, I feel that I became this way because no one else was stepping up to the plate. I felt like a teacher had just asked a question to the whole class, but glares at me because they want me to answer. Once the lesser minds of the class caught on, the entire room was staring me down; reluctantly I rose my hand and became the linchpin that held my crumbling family together.
I'm in shock. I'm angry. I'm hurt. I want to run away and never look back. I want this to be alright...NORMAL. But it isn't about me. It is about my family, and if I run now, then there will be no hope. I lost hope, faith, and any shred of light left in my spirit to get me through this. There is no one here to ask if I am okay, no one to tell me that everything is going to be alright because life doesn't work that way. I have support, I know that. But until someone saves me from the searing stares of by peers, I am left speechless and raw underneath by tough and "normal" exterior.
