Hey, Man, Let Me Catch You Up

I’m not one of those people who puts everything on the internet. Hell, I’m not one of those people that puts everything out in my meat space. I have been conditioned to only discuss my existence in the most general of terms because no one really has the attention span for much more. It doesn’t occur to me to say more, even when I probably should say more.

So here’s what I haven’t been saying since October 1st of 2024.

From October 1st until December 31st, between my dad and my roommate Carrie, there were-

• 10 ER visits
• 5 hospitalizations
• 3 911 calls
• 2 surgeries
• 1 death

During this time period my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer (good prognosis with treatment), congestive heart failure, and COPD; I lost count of all of the doctor’s appointments; a long time bestie was also diagnosed with breast cancer, had a double mastectomy, and had new boobs planted (good prognosis there, too); and my dad’s first chemo treatment happened just days after Carrie died. I also had my own visit to the doctor for a med check and was given a second blood pressure medicine because the only other alternative was to lower my stress, and baby, that ain’t happening. There’s probably a bunch of other stuff that happened during that time, but I can’t immediately recall it.

Since this time period, there’s been another hospitalization, a change in my dad’s chemo schedule from every three weeks to weekly, and I don’t know how many medication changes.

In the past month, I’ve played catch up with a couple of people I haven’t talked to for a while. They asked me what’s been going on in my life, and I honestly didn’t know how to answer that question. How do you answer that question when a great bit of your life for the past 8 or 9 months has been this? It’s not the cheery catch up people expect, that’s for sure. When I have talked about it, the people on the receiving end have been kind and empathetic and supportive. I’ve received many offers of help if I need it, which I appreciate, even though I’ll never let myself accept it. But I haven’t talked about it much because I struggle with exactly what to say.

I also kinda don’t want to talk about it. Standing hips deep in the swamp, I’d rather not discuss it, I guess. While I’m getting better about talking about what’s going on with my dad, I’m still not ready to talk about Carrie’s death.

People talk about processing things. I honestly have no idea what that means or how to do it. Right now I’m just going from one thing to the next. One appointment to the next. One task to the next. One responsibility to the next. I’m in the now, experiencing things as they happen, and dealing with them as they come. I have no idea what to do beyond that, but I guess I’ll figure it out. At this point, I’m kinda hoping I’m processing as I go and don’t realize it.

I’m still working on how to condense all of this into an easily digestible, quick answer for the next time I have to catch someone up.

Maybe I can just direct them to this post.