I've Been Fine

I'm not writing this for anyone else. 

I'm not writing this for attention, or for blog views, or for sympathy or comments or any other reason that people write things like this.

I'm writing this for me.

I'm writing this because it's 1:38 in the morning and I can't sleep.

Every time I close my eyes I have vivid and terrible nightmares of people dying during surgery, people dropping weight from Chemo treatments until they weigh less than most models do, people losing their hair and eventually fading away. People passing through the seven stages of grief until the once bold and strong, are nothing more than blathering fools who marvel at blades of grass and seize young people in the park, urging them to carpe every diem they have.

I'm writing this because I haven't said it out loud in a way that makes it seem real since I found out, exactly 1 month ago yesterday.

My dad has colon cancer.

He's having surgery today to remove the tumor and find out what stage the cancer is at.

I can't sleep.

And let me make this clear, I was FINE. 

I have been FINE.

I have been completely ok. 

I mean, yes, I was upset when I found out, yes, my hands shook while I made dinner that whole first night that I knew. 

Yes, I cried when I told the two or three people who I've told so far, and YES I drank an entire bottle of {really good} Italian white wine until I couldn't feel my own legs.

But since then, I've for the most part been pretty fucking OK.

And now the surgery is tomorrow, and I didn't take the day off from work because I thought I'd be fine, like I have been, but I'm not.

I am not fine.

And even though he'll be in surgery all day long, and I won't even get to see him until after the time that I'd be off work anyway, I still want to be there. 

I want to be sitting in the hospital waiting room when he rolls out of surgery.

It's the night before, and it's almost 2 a.m. and I didn't take the day off from work, and I am not fine.

I can't sleep.

I can't think of anything but surgery and mortality rates and blood.

I should've taken the fucking day off.