I think his name was Dr. Lymp but for the life of me I'm not sure if that really was his name. I do know that he brought really bad news into the life of a 13 year old and her mother on that awful day.
My mother took me to Los Banos with her on that fateful day. We went in to the office and I sat in the waiting room. I think my innocence was taken away by what the doctor told my mother. I don't think I ever fully recovered. I do know that I revisited that experience when at 27 I was told my father had cancer.
The really odd thought that I'm reliving right at the moment is that in all the years from 13 to 50 that not one doctor EVER told me that either one of the cancers my parents had was hereditary. hmmmmmm
We walked out and got into the car and I noticed my mother's stricken look. I had seen it off and on my whole life as my mother had experienced a really tough lot in life and THAT LOOK really scared me. Sure enough when I asked her, she blurted out that the doctor had told her the worst news that could be. My mother had cancer! .......... and she drove on home to later tell my daddy. (I was to hear my dad crying in the bathroom later in the evening. You've got to understand my dad was from the era of a man's man and he even looked a little like John Wayne.) I had never heard my daddy cry and think that may have been the only time ever that I did.
I had only picked up bits and pieces of my mother's life and this day would prove no different as I didn't know what the word 'CANCER' implied. I was later to understand the meaning when I heard my mother and father talking.
Back in the day when 'CANCER' was mentioned, it would mean simply 'DEATH'. If you had cancer, it was inevitable that you would die. I don't think I heard the word remission for years and years??? Go figure, eh? Maybe it was back then what it is now........... brainwashing.
It would come to mean to me.............. frightening thoughts of loss, terror, insanity, and many other words that still to this day make me cry.
Years later the word would be told to me again when I heard that my father had the big 'C'. (I think I mentioned this earlier but what the hell, it needs to be said.)I would also hear from my best friend that her mother had cancer and that would turn into something called pain that would cause her mother to have to have a hole drilled in her head and morphine injected directly into her brain. It became a habit in our home town. I would later determine that cancer was a part of every person's life in one way or the other.
I would visit my parents and in time it seemed they were almost in competition for attention. It was horrible to be around them as there was so much going on all the time. The visits to the doctors and my dad's chemo treatments were simply 'the worst'. I took to drinking and as time went by that was the only way I could visit them. I would be reprimanded by my mother and it seemed that after my dad had the treatments he became a mirror image of my mother. To this day I think I lost my father when he had surgery in 76.
My father sent me 2 letters and signed them both,
Your Ex Father.......... this broke my heart as it seemed I never knew how to handle my parents. I guess it was my fault that their lives turned out this way.
I remember my dad saying he wanted to bomb the Social Security office as my mother could never get money as they said she wasn't disabled???
I knew that my parents got welfare in some form as they had people that came around and helped with cleaning and cooking and I think that almost killed my father as he was a very proud man and welfare was something when talked about that insinuated failure.
I remember on two occasions watching my father turn blue and the paramedics had to be called. I also remember his skin peeling and him saying that the cure was worse than the cancer. It was excruciating pain to watch my parents in this horrilbe situatin and not be able to do anything for either of them.
There was one day that my parents had gone to the doctors; my dad with a walker and my mother simply going along for the ride. When they returned home they discovered their mobile home had been robbed and all their medications stolen. (I think this may have been the reason that they both eventually gave up and just died... my mother in July of 1981 and my dad nine months later on April 18, 1982.)
I guess I've gotten ahead of myself as I wanted to share with you the experience of my daddy in the hospital right after surgery.
My mother came out of intensive care and she looked pale and she was very shakin. My brother then came out and he was crying. My mother suggested I not go in to see my dad as she said I wouldn't be able to handle it as I was always such a cry baby.
I was determined to see my father after what the two of them told me. They acted as if my dad was going to die and I should buck up and accept it without even seeing him. That made me more determined than ever as I didn't see my brother and mother as my allies in this situation.
I walked past the two of them and into the room. I didn't see what they had seen at all as I thought my dad looked pretty good after going through what he went through. My dad didn't have his teeth in and that in itself was a bit disarming but my brain took it into consideration and all in all, he looked pretty good to me.
I held his hand for a bit and kissed his forehead and walked out to address my brother and mother. I asked my brother where my mother was and he said in the bathroom. I walked into the ladies room and walked over to her to embrace her. I put my arms around my mother trying to comfort her only to have her slam me up against the wall.
To this day I wonder where I get my empathetic ways as I surely wasn't shown it by my mother.
........... years later after my parents died my daughter called me and shared with me that she dreamed my mother had called her from heaven. My mother had told my daughter that she now understood me. My daughter asked me why I thought my mother had called her. hmmmmmm
I told my daughter that I would have hung up on the bitch.
I was later to research my mother's life and I finally was able to forgive her for all the torture that was in our history. I'm glad I did as I am finally able to heal and I finally recognize that the horrible American system and or establishment was set up to do to us what has been done and now I am able to work on helping others understand.
My best friend that I spoke of earlier had cancer in 1993 and I think her experience changed her radically from a good, decent, hardworking, beautiful person into a hardened uncaring, damaged being. She was the most wonderful, caring, giving person before all she went thru fighting with the insurance and doctors that I KNOW for a fact that had she not had the awful experience she would still be the Cheryl I loved and depended on at 13.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Happy B'day to me!