The Information Gathering Stage

My peaceful, funny father is spending two hours getting scanned for what I believe will be bad news. 

I'm trying really hard to stay in the present.  Close eyes, three deep breaths, peace, mind begins to race again, repeat, close eyes, three deep breaths, peace, and repeat and repeat and repeat.  I'm going to zen out or pass out, I'm not sure which.

This is so unfair.  It's not fair to feel healthy on the outside and sick on the inside. 

I'm very much like my father, a pragmatist, a pacifist, a humanist.  And I've learned a lot over my years of grief and healing, all of which I'm drawing upon all at once:
1. light candles
2. be quiet
3. be patient, it's a process
4. ask for help
4.5 make the gratitude lists
5. cry freely
6. ask for more help
7. cry some more
8. be gentle with yourself

Sometimes I'm crying because I'm afraid; sometimes I'm crying because I don't want my father to suffer; sometimes I'm crying because I don't want to suffer; sometimes I don't know why I'm crying but it just comes and I've learned to let it because it's a great release.

Of course I spent time researching, with the little bit of time that we've had before meeting the surgeon, and when I did it helped calm me and then send me spinning.  I'm ill-prepared for cancer.  I'm 37 years old and none of my friends have battled this yet, even with their parents.  I've heard the lango but I don't know what it means and it all sounds scary (I have to assume because I lack understanding.)

I need to find some hope; some faith.  I'm feeling fatalistic, and it's coming upon be naturally yet it feels foreign in my head.  This is my mom's side of the family, which is strange because my mother is a very faithful person.  She's also Irish and fond of saying, "the Irish love to taste their troubles before they are realized."  It might be the lawyer in me trying to problem-solve and weigh the risks.  It might be the Irish in my, expecting the worst and hoping for the best.  It's probably all of it.