Parenting and Cancer - After Treatment

Do some Googling. You'll see that parents who have put a child through cancer treatment often experience PTSD symptoms. Fortunately I am not experiencing these symptoms.

BUT... Things aren't the same. It's difficult.

During treatment I was Superdad. Once I got past the first few days I was able to roll with the punches. Sometimes things were going well, other times they really sucked. But I was able to keep myself pretty emotionally stable. This is probably due to a multitude of reasons.

First and foremost, I was put in a fight-or-flight situation, one of the most primal situations. I fought. And I was damn good at it. Some thought I was just holding it in. I wasn't. I was put in a situation beyond my control and coped with it very well.

Second was the support. Not just from friends and family. Not just from nurses and doctors. But other parents. I was continuously surrounded by other people in my situation. It helped. A lot.

Now I'm in a different situation. Andy's cured. But it still happened. My son could have lost his life. He didn't. But he could have. He was continuously poked and prodded, bled, stuck with needles, injected with poison, knocked out, sedated, cut open, torn apart, medicated beyond recognition, etc. You get the idea. It didn't bother me at the time but it does now.

I wish I had answers. I wish I knew how to cope with this. But I do not. I find myself being pretty unstable now. Sure some good came out of it. I have a whole new (better) perspective on life.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. Venting I guess. It hurts. Thinking about what we went through with Andy is flat-out painful.

Oh well. I'll end this post now.