Maybe it’s me.

Some days I wonder, is it me?

What I’m talking about is that I seem to always be against my family or it feels the other way around.

My family wants to live up to an unrealistic perfect world, but once we seem to achieve that standard, my mother, grandmother or  sister has to start finding some kind of flaw. It usually is me. I have accepted I am the black sheep of my family. I guess my cousin (on my mom’s side) was right, her and I fit that mold.

I no matter what I do or what happens to me, I am always fighting some battle with my family. Since high school, they started trying to control my life more and more. Banning me from certain areas, telling me who I can and can’t hangout with and causing me to be more bullied in high school when they tried to help. I’ll admit I was a wild child, compared to my siblings, but I may have gone to parties, but I never did drugs nor did my friends. Some friends, my mother considered beneath me, hence the banning of them. And I had extra family problems in high school than my brother and sister dealt with since they went off to college. My dad tried to shield and protect me as much as he could, but I won’t go into detail more than that.

My sister and brother will never understand what I went through back then. And I don’t expect them to. But no matter what, they never have stood up for me. My brother used to belittle me and I finally stood up for myself, he stopped. Now he seems to be back at it again.

I know no one is perfect, especially me. And I can forgive. The chemo brain is making me forget things more easily fortunately and unfortunately. It even seems to be getting worse day by day.

There is one thing I cannot forgive or forget. That’s no one visiting me. My mom would visit and we would get into fights over who I wanted to visit me, my fiance. I almost think the cancer was easier to fight than her.

Because my parents had insurance on me through their business that I didn’t know about, it overruled mine and they brainwashed me into thinking I would be in debt if I stayed with mine. I had no choice, if I wanted to continue to get chemo, to go to Orlando. So every week I would wake up at 4am to drive to Orlando from Miami and wait in the car or hospital or sleeping in the waiting room chair. There was a time I was turned away  because they did not have any beds, even though they scheduled me for those days. Another time, I waited in my car for 8 hours until I moved to the waiting room chair to sleep with my luggage around me. My mom did come help me that day. One of the times my dad did stay with me the whole day/night. He saw how bad the treatment was, I wouldn’t get chemo until 9-10pm. He helped me by complaining to the head manager of the Orlando Hospital.

After I would get released, I wouldn’t stay the night at my parents house, even though they were only 45 minutes from the hospital. Not until they accepted my choices, accepted me, accepted my fiance. I would drive as soon as I left. Note: I am not proud of driving nor do I condone driving after chemotherapy. Especially a 4 1/2-5 hour drive. I did that from the mid December to April. My fiance would come to see me when he could. He offered to take off just to drive me there even, but I declined every time.

I got engaged literally a month before I was diagnosed and postponed all events/planning. My mom told me that the siblings and my dad couldn’t visit me because they had to work and were so busy with it. I believed my dad was and I understood that it was still a far drive for everyone to make to Miami, everyone made it down the first time. And my parents blamed my fiance for giving me cancer. Telling him my blood was on his hands. He just came to surprise me and they waited until I was in the shower to say their true feelings. I didn’t know he came until after I got out and dressed with the “cancer stick” (IV/chemo bags) attached to me. I’m sorry, but you cannot blame someone else for giving someone cancer. It’s not contagious. (Maybe if it was lung cancer from second hand smoke, but even then.) It’s wrong.

Every other week I would be in the hospital for 3 days, moving treatment to Orlando made my one day stays over 9 hours long. I would be the first one in and the last one out. But again, no one could find any time to visit me even for a little. Or call. Or text. The only other time my sister visited me since was in Orlando the second to last week of March. She was only driving to see me because she had extra time while she waited for her fiance to get off work and drive up. They signed up for a Disney run the next day. It was just convenient for her I guess. And knowing it was my last treatment the weekend after, I knew my brother was planning on going. Call it a gut feeling, but I was right. So I texted him that night saying I wasn’t going to be there and was feeling ill. (I knew if you were feeling sick/under the weather, they wouldn’t give you chemo). I told him I would go to the Miami hospital if I felt worse, but couldn’t do the Orlando drive. Well even though he accepted the answer, he still had to go to the hospital and called me, left me a voicemail, making me feel terrible for not telling anyone at the hospital (even though, they barely knew me and that I came every other week for months, they would literally forget I was still there at lunch and near the end of the day). I tried to call and leave them a message about my absence. No one called me at all. I don’t think until the next day or two.

I knew what my siblings were doing. They knew they didn’t do that much to show they cared. Yes, they would call every now and then, but it would usually be after treatment. The hospital would pump me with loads of fluids to flush the chemo out, for like a 250 lb person. I was 100 lb, I would be up 3 sizes when discharged, my face would be swollen (worse than when I had my wisdom teeth removed), it would hurt to swallow and to talk. I wouldn’t want to talk to anyone. I was miserable. I would only text. They claimed I came off like I didn’t want to talk to anyone, aka my family. If only they knew what I was really going through. They also claimed that once I went to Orlando, I wouldn’t tell anyone my appointments, no one knew. Except my mom. My sister did tell me, my mom would call the hospital to find out when I was supposed to come in. If she knew she did that, there was no excuse to not knowing. She could’ve asked her or known she left for a day or two.

They both were too busy “working”, meaning they were too busy getting engaged, flying to New York, dress shopping, bridal events and driving to Savannah for venues. I asked

I came back to work for the family business and mend things. But things are worse than ever. I boycott family events because they invite my brothers fiance and her family, along with my sisters fiance and his family. They never met my sisters fiance’s family, but once they came to visit, my parents through a welcome party for them. My fiance’s family have yet to be invited to anything. Even of the passing of his father.

One time I was in Orlando getting chemo and my mom texted me to tell my sister to pick a different Maid of Honor because I wasn’t fulfilling the duty. It’s been all about my sister’s wedding since. Planning things and trips, while I laid in a hospital bed with my hair falling out until I was balled. I asked my dad if I could get a wig, the hospital wig shop wasn’t open then, so I asked for some money for it. He said my mom wanted to be there for it. My fiance took me to a wig shop and bought what he could afford (since I had no money). He told me I could get any wig I wanted, no matter the price. He would find a way to pay for it.

While working here, I said something to my sister that needed to be said. I said you know you might have had to keep your backup Maid of Honor. I might not have been around. Instead of planning a wedding, it might have been planning a funeral. She replied, we knew you’d beat it. How…how can someone know you can beat cancer when it has taken the lives of so many. You don’t know.

This is my first New Year’s cancer free since. I’m going into the new year healthy. I cannot believe I would be thinking those words. It’s crazy to think where I was a year ago. We had one day off for Christmas and have one day off for New Years. I was planning on going down to Miami for my fiance’s family. I requested time off for two days (to also sell my car before the end of the year for the best deal and before my car continues to depreciate). My dad approved, even though he was hoping I would stay for the whole week. My sister left the states for her fiance’s friends wedding and only worked one day this week and won’t be back till the new year. Another employee left for IL last week and won’t be back till the new year. My parents are driving to GA and won’t be back till the new year. Who knows what my brother and the other two employees plans are. I filled that form out yesterday, but by the end of the day my mom called blowing up that I didn’t deserve any days off. That she is cancelling the GA trip if I take off. I love my dad, I didn’t want to cause him more problems. So I decided to cancel my plans and save his. Guess I’ll be stuck with my crappy car for a while longer. I ripped up the approval form in front of my dad. My brother sided with my mom, of course. But he is the one who leaves early all the time to get his hair cut once every two weeks at least and leaves for a few hours, if you ask him where he’s going he either ignores you or mumbles something as he is leaving. I know how my mom is and she cancels holidays (it was usually Easter) if things aren’t fully her way. So my plans are ruined and my fiance is miserable. He thinks I bend over backwards for everyone in my family when most treat me terribly. That is just how my family functions. Things do need to change for the new year. I will be putting him, us and our life first. I will stand up for myself and us. I promised myself that cancer made me stronger and I feel like my family is trying to beat me down to nothing. But like cancer, I refuse to give in.

 

New year. New me.

xO