Diary #19 (5-30-23)

The Cancer Diaries

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Photo by ANIRUDH on Unsplash

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Holy shit. That’s the best way to say it. Or perhaps: Holy Fuck-Sticks.

So. Last night I got very close to no sleep. An hour or two, maybe. I was anxious, restless all night. I couldn’t settle down. I’d been reading Bill Bryson’s book Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way, which was fairly successfully distracting me—as had my hike to the Lompoc water tower earlier with Britney—but I couldn’t escape this nagging sensation like something was wrong with my dad. Or would be wrong.

Just before my niece attempted suicide for the first time—late May, 2021—my mom had a very vivid dream with my niece in it wherein she said she was “drowning” and then ran into the sea and barely survived the pounding surf and a nasty riptide. Not long after that the on-purpose car crash happened.

Well, in a similar way, I had a “feeling.”

I’d fallen asleep deep in the early morning for maybe twenty, thirty minutes. When I casually checked my phone there was a text from Mom. It was 5:30am. The text said: “Michael, come as soon as you can; Dad refuses to wear his oxygen mask; he’s belligerent; he threw up blood everywhere.”

That got my attention. I sat bolt upright, adrenaline surging. What a way to wake up. I paraded into the living room, naked, and there was Britney on the couch, working before going to work officially, donning her pink robe. I told her what was going on. I gathered my wits for a moment. I quickly threw on jeans and a shirt and jacket and then called my mom.

Mom was half crying when she answered the phone, and she sounded highly agitated and disturbed. All she said was, with a sincere, deep quiver in her voice: “Michael, he’s been off oxygen for 90 minutes. He threw up blood all over the place. He wants to go. Come now.”

“Ok,” I said, and we hung up.