PTSD....

While I do not compare myself to those that have had horrible war experiences, I do experience moments of PTSD.  I do not look for it, it just happens.  Sometimes, I know it will and I choke it down.  I do so for the better of others and to help them, but sometimes it sneaks up on me in every day life.

On Monday of this week, I was planning on meeting my aunt at her cabin.  It is in Plain, Wa.  She has had it since 1992.  Longer than I have been married, and the place that Grant can sleep for hours on end.  I packed up the boys and I and we headed out.  This had been planned for a long time.  My Aunt has to schedule her vacation like a bazillion weeks in advance.  What I did not realize is that the last time I was there, ONLY WITH MY AUNT AND THE BOYS, was the weekend I came home and Grant told me I had cancer.  We have been there since, but with different combinations.  Me with Karissa, me with Jane, etc.  No one let me travel by myself.  When I realized it, it was spooky.  Yep.  Spooky.  I was down at the beach at the river with both of my boys.  Last time, Donna had Nolan and he was screaming.  Now, he is swimming in the river, picking up rocks and throwing them into a pile.  The temperature is the same, but it is nine years later.  My baby is grown up.  He is with me from the time that I was so exhausted that I could only take Mason to the river.  The flashbacks come.  Grant telling me.  Me walking away from him.  Disbelief.  Belief.  Pain.  Suffering.  So much suffering.  So much pain.  Chemo.  Radiation.  Surgery.  More surgery.  More Chemo.  Ablation.  More surgery.  And more surgery.  And then, the sound of the river.  The comfort of the new beds in the loft.  Cooking.  Adventures with the boys and my aunt around Leavenworth.  Movies.....OMG...so many movies....and then the ride home before the 4th of July rush.

And now it is 3:50 in the morning and I am going to bed.  Laundry is almost done.  Dishes clean.  No chemo, surgery, radiation in my near future........what nine years can do......I love the sound of the river.

Happy Friday,

Ang