Laying Aside The Pride…….

This is a difficult post for me to write.

I need help.

I hate asking for help. I hate needing help. I’ve taken great pride in being able to take care of my family on my own and now……..now I am coming humbly and asking for help.

Up until now, I’ve been trying to “do” everything and honestly, we are not doing well. I am not doing well. I feel completely overwhelmed and like I am at my breaking point. I, personally, have had one too many melt downs just recently and I need to be a bit stronger to deal with the demands on my time and energy for the long haul. I’d like to say that were it not for all this cancer crap, that I’d be doing okay but…..we are dealing with cancer and 5 kids and all the craziness and chaos that surrounds us.

I’ll do a more detailed update on how we (individually) are all doing soon, but honestly, it’s not pretty. It’s pretty rough over here and we have a long road ahead of us.

There are about 32 weeks of Intensive Chemotherapy Treatment left for Angelica before she starts the maintenance stage. This (the maintenance stage) is when our Doctor has talked about things getting back to more of a normal stage of life. Until then, not counting any time for delays, we are looking at more than 6 months of treatment. That’s a long time!

Right now, we feel like we are barely hanging on and while we’ve had offers of help in the past, we just didn’t know what to do with the help. And…..I thought I’d be able to deal with everything.

And so, to anyone who has offered or is interested, I’m asking for help!

There are so many ways that someone could help. It doesn’t have to be a huge commitment. It could be a one time commitment, or weekly or even monthly. It could be 15 minutes or longer and there are many different ways that you could help. From cleaning, to meals, to helping with the kids, to sending a card or e-mail – anything that helps to lift some of the burden from us would be amazing.

The strain of dealing with the Chemotherapy Treatment is SO MUCH GREATER than just some physical discomfort for Angelica. Walking your child through the Treatment is a full time job. There are the physical issues that come as a result of the treatment like nausea, vomiting, mouth sores, weight loss, lack of appetite, muscle loss due to inactivity as a result of the physical devastation of the chemo drugs, insomnia, fatigue and pain. There is the mental anguish and fear from everything going on and not understanding 100%, to the fear of the unknown and the future. There is the schedule of treatment. It’s a brutal wicked schedule and the treatment center is an hour away from us, more if there is traffic. It is a huge thing to deal with.

Add in 4 other children each with their own specific needs and add on top of that the fear and confusion of having a sister dealing with cancer and a mom and dad who are distracted and overwhelmed and not available in the way that they have been.

Add in 2 jobs, neither of which are being done well. Add in the extra house work and meals and school work, oh and the stress of not having any time to invest in each other or the kids, individually, throw in finances and you have an unbelievable recipe for disaster. This is not even the whole picture……

I’m not trying to whine and complain. Realistically, this is just where we are at.

We are so grateful and thankful for every thing, big and small that we’ve been blessed with. We have been so SO blessed by so many.

If you have offered to help or are interested in helping, we are at the place where we are willing to accept it and we hope that we have an easy way to explain what we need.

We are not expecting anything and right now, we have nothing more than our gratefulness and thankfulness to offer in return.

But…….if you are interested in helping, please click here and see the sheet that we’ve created with some of the details.

Author: Patricia Culley

I'm the ringmaster of my own circus. Just trying to stay one step ahead of the monkeys. View all posts by Patricia Culley