Telling Everyone

I am a very private person, so telling people that I am sick is very hard for me. My whole life I have worked so hard to keep up appearances so no one can see the pain I’m in. I have been lucky that my symptoms are internal and can’t be seen just looking at my skin. Each time I tell someone I feel more and more removed from the situation. I don’t want to get emotional each time, so I just remove myself from the information I am relaying.

Then once you get the diagnosis and prognosis out, you get a myriad of questions and emotions back. Some people want to know all the details of the treatment, some want to know he I feel about it, some people are just in shock and some people try to shrug it off as nothing. Each reaction is equally hard for me to absorb and react to.

If I could go through the entire treatment without telling anyone I would. But this isn’t small or easy so I can’t go through it alone. Everyone in my life has to be on board, I will be asking for more favors and help than I ever have. I need to temporarily move which means my job, parents and friends have to know. My boyfriend Nathan is coming with me which means his job, family and friends have to know. Basically everyone within a decent radius of my life has to know.

I have been telling everyone one by one as much as possible, trying to make sure the people closets to me hear it from me. I have used lunch meetings, coffee meetings, Skype time, phone calls and text messages telling everyone. But now I am tired. I am tired to going over and over the details. I am tired of reacting to everyone else’s reaction. And I am tired of if consuming my life. I have told everyone I think needs to hear it directly from me and now will just let it spread as it will.

What an emotionally exhausting month.