The cancer has returned

Dad has a new and seemingly fast-growing tumor very close to where his first tumor was. He will have another surgery in 2 weeks. 

At this point, none of us knows what else this entails. 

Will there be more chemo and radiation? We don't know.

Since the cancer came back so quickly, are there trials for immunotherapy that he could do? We don't know.

Has the cancer spread beyond just that tumor? We don't know.

When dad went through his first surgery in the late summer/early fall, I did two things.

First, I tried to find humor in suffering because there is humor to be found if only if that humor is absolute absurdity. 

Dad's incision cut through the entire right side of his face so when I would call to check up on him I'd ask how Blackbeard was doing. Dad could have easily been a stand-in for one of the pirates on the Jack Sparrow franchise. 

He'd had to have his top teeth removed for radiation so I got him a pair of wind-up teeth for Christmas. 

The second thing I did was I worried and stewed. 

While my antidepressant helps me from completing stopping eating when I am worried, I had little appetite or desire to eat. I fretted about whether the first PET scan would find cancer riddling his body, making further treatments pointless. 

I felt such relief when he showed no cancer beyond that one spot on his face. 

And now I recognize that me worrying or stewing made not one iota's difference. (Rationally, I know worrying never makes any difference.)

I can actuate zero change in any of this. 

For the moment, I'm finding myself feeling very "whatever" about the entire thing. And by "whatever" I don't mean that I don't care; I mean that me fretting or worrying will change absolutely nothing. 

I simply feel sad. It devastates me to know my dad is suffering. 

I also feel angry at my utter lack of control, at the unfairness for my dad and for thousands and millions of people who are facing such things. I am angry for the Rwandans who faced genocide and the Jews who were forced into camps and the Native Americans who were viciously slaughtered without any "control" over any of it. 

I am angry at the human condition. And while some might say this is anger at God, I don't believe in sugar-daddy God who I can turn to for miracles. I don't believe that God makes things happen or that God's ways are beyond our understanding. 

If I subscribe to that belief, I am forced to believe that this God is also sadistic. 

For my own sanity, it is better for me to believe that nature is cyclical and sometimes there is no reason beyond the simple fact that everything dies. It is here that I have to chuck Christian God out the window and adopt Buddhist impermanence.

(And here is where I can make a shitty joke that God did "open a window," through which I tossed him to make way for Buddhist thought.)

However, I do find myself angry at all the people who might think or say stupid things like "Things happen for a reason" and "Pain has a purpose" and "God never gives you more than you can handle."

Because these are unmitigated lies. 

Life regularly gives people more pain than they can handle; they survive because their only other option is to commit suicide.

It is beyond stupid to be angry at the mindset of other people because I know people adopt whatever mindset they need to help them cope just as I am adopting mindsets right now to help me cope. 

I am angry at my uselessness to effect anything that will make this go away. It is easier to put a name to my blame. 

So when I am able I am reminding myself to simply sit with my anger and my sadness and feel them in all their misery.