The New Norm
“I love your kidneys, baby!” I proclaimed. A bit of an odd statement, I agree. I’ve made equally ridiculous proclamations particularly over the past couple month as Brynn deals with microcosm of issues as part of her larger fight against cancer. As we go into the fourth month since the diagnosis, surgery and subsequent treatment, I realize there will be many other emotional outbursts driven by the ups and downs of this experience with Brynn and me learning to live with this new reality: her dealing with the physical and psychological symptoms of life with cancer, and me with the emotional side of having to watch my wife battle this thing, while keeping my shit together as a caregiver, and with my own life.
When Brynn was diagnosed, we both had ideas on how we were going to approach the day-to-day. We planned and organized our house for convenience and comfort. We bought food, and gadgets to prepare the food with that will most likely never be used. We started discussing how to feed our emotional, intellectual and physical needs. We were certain that we were going to take this thing head on with such vigor. We had a plan and were prepared! I called this blog “The New Norm” because what I have discovered through the journey is that there is no new norm, and certainly no preparation that anyone can do to face this. The norm is whatever the day provides us with. Simply put, we live in a constant state of flow.
However, when I started thinking about our life and my experience, removing the daily dealings of symptom management and caregiver duties, the new norm appears to be the state of being so close to many concurrent emotions and thoughts around love, fear, joy, sadness, life, death, hope and despair. Usually we have so much more distance at any point in time from each of these individually that we have the luxury of dropping the mix to focus on a single one at any one point. What I am experiencing is being so close to each of these emotions, as you’re surrounded by an amalgamation of them at all times driven by the daily and sometime hourly change. The joy of having a wonderful date or weekend can quickly dissipate into despair, as I’m reminded of Brynn’s condition from the daily experience of being on her side. But the hope is constant.
Maybe this is what life really is from an existential point of view, but we just simply get to ignore the fluid nature of it until a dramatic event like this. The reality is that I am not learning this lesson on my own volition, but the circumstance is forcing me into approaching it with such an acknowledgment and acceptance. Each decision Brynn makes towards tackling this, combined with her current state at any given time, makes my relationship with these feelings to be present in a constant manner. In return, I am having to be in a chronic state of understanding, and malleability to emotional change. I started this journey asking the purpose of this lesson, and whether I would be learning anything from it...
-Troy