I'm not ready
I'm back in Hawaii for the next month. My dad is getting some really major surgery done on Thursday so I came back for it. Long story short, he has an aneurysm that is over 4cm large in his hepatic artery. It's something that showed up on a couple of medical reports but for whatever reason was overlooked by two different doctors. My mom said she had gotten an Email that told her that new test results had come in, so she logged in to see what they were since she wasn't aware that neither she nor my dad were waiting for anything. She said there were no new test results, but in reading over the last few medical reports, she wasn't sure what the notation was about. She pushed my dad's PCP for a referral to a specialist - and that's how we found out about the aneurysm.
In consulting with various doctors about the aneurysm and determining next steps, they found that one of the other arteries that also supplies blood to the liver and surrounding organs is calcified and blocked (likely due to old age). The original plan the hepatologist came up with was to cut out the aneurysm entirely from the hepatic artery, but without any blood supply to the liver, just the removal of the aneurysm alone would have caused death. Leaving an aneurysm alone at over 4cm in size means that it can rupture at any time, and if that were to happen - it is also fatal.
The hepatologist and her colleagues then went to consult with a vascular surgeon, who came up with the current plan - he will build a bypass in order for the liver etc. to still be able to get blood supply, then he will remove the aneurysm. It's a very complicated surgery that will take at least 8 hours, and Dad is going to get that done on Thursday - about 1.5 days from now.
My dad is 72 this year - while not young, we still think he should have a few more years to see K grow up and see her little brother be born. But as with any major surgery, there are a lot of risks - possible heart attack, stroke, paralysis, adverse effects from the anesthesia, and other things, and of course - death.
I was sitting with my parents today as they were telling me about the last pre-op appointment with the vascular surgeon earlier today. My mom said that once she explained all the risks to my dad, he was shaking. I think that while we all knew this was a major surgery and that there were risks - I don't think the full weight of it all fully sunk in until today. My dad, ever the logical and pragmatic one, talked again about what would happen if we had to carry on without him - where my mom would live, what we'd do with their current place, and even moving money from bank accounts around and adding my name to some of their accounts.
My dad also said today that he lived a good life, with two great kids and a dedicated wife, and that was all he could have asked for. He teared up when he was saying that, and so did my mom. I did my best to sit there expressionless and nonchalant - because someone has to be. Over the last few months of grappling with my dad being diagnosed with bladder cancer and then this whole aneurysm thing - my parents have both asked me to filter information to my brother, since he has a lot going on in his own life and is stressed. I guess I've never considered myself to be the strong one, and now I have to be.
I'm now in my room fighting back tears. It's a heavy burden to try to hold it together because that's what my family needs, and I don't know that it's 100% fair that it all falls on me - because as an adult, it's always been that way. Everything falls on me because I know what to do and how to handle myself - even if, I've felt in my entire life that I have been the weakest one, trying to deal with my own mental health issues and trying and failing miserably to keep my own emotions in check.
I was talking to SoulSlicer about this a few weeks ago - where now it's that time in our lives when our parents are getting older, and we face the possibility that we can lose them at any time. He said to me, "I'm not ready." Neither am I. I'll be 38 in a couple of months but I'm still not ready. Up until my mom's breast cancer diagnosis a couple of years ago, I couldn't even talk to my friends about losing either of my parents - it was something that, when the subject came up - I would stop and change the subject. I couldn't even think about it or acknowledge it. Maybe it's an immature way to deal with mortality, and it's not to say that I haven't lost several loved ones in my life - both family members and friends - but this feels like a whole different foreign realm.
I've never been anxious about returning home before, but last night I couldn't even sleep while spending the night at Yosh's house. I had a sobbing, crying episode before I went over there last night and hoped I had gotten it out of my system. I didn't want to come back, because I didn't want it to be real. I didn't want to face any of this. I don't know that there would ever be a right time to face this anyway. I don't want to be my family's Atlas, holding everything up, and doing it alone. I'm not ready.