I’m an ugly crier.

I admire those people who can sob and then tap their eyes dry and go on about their day.  I have to make a day of it.  If I start crying, my eyes swell up.  The upper lids get all puffy like I’ve been punched.  My lower lids are fine but way down below my lower lids, where I don’t even think it should count as part of the eye anymore, I get huge bags.  I don’t have bags there normally which I am ever so thankful for, but if I cry I get a whole luggage set.  The extra fun part is that my eyes don’t stop swelling after I quit crying.  If I cry before I go to sleep my eyes will keep swelling overnight until they are hard to open in the morning. 

My point is that I can’t hide if I’ve been crying.  That sucks when you are crying a lot and trying to carry on like nothing is wrong.

A scan this week showed the husband’s lymph nodes as all enlarged.  That’s bad enough normally but he had a kidney tumor removed a year ago.  If this is spread of that tumor into the lymph nodes, there is basically no treatment.  Best case scenario is lymphoma.  How messed up is it to be seeing lymphoma as your bright and shining hope?

My doctor brain fires up and starts calculating odds which leads to panic and total breakdowns.  My instinct is to hide this from him because he doesn’t need to deal with me on top of everything else.  I’ve always been the emotionally strong one in the relationship.  I did end up crying all over him one night.  He seems to read “total breakdown” as just me getting weird sometimes but starts to get worried when I agree with anything he wants to do for too many days in a row.  I pointed out that it was a sad commentary on how messed up our lives are that he knows that.  I also said that I tend to have three days of blind panic and then settle down.  How fucked up is it that we’ve done this enough that I know that?

So there is testing to come to see what it is for sure and if anything can be done.  There may be more radio silence around here.  I’m not feeling like writing light and happy reviews.  I’m taking some solace in the fact that people do this every day.  People get through this even if they don’t want to.  I feel like there should be a spontaneous combustion option offered though.Â