Type A AF

Ughhhh. You know what I can’t stand? Not being in control. You know what is completely out of my control? Cancer. My good friends coined the phrase “Type A AF” to describe how I am. I dig it. Anyway, I just got back from a run (I am an avid believer in exercise, whether running outside, using my Sweat app or doing a pre-programed run on my treadmill, it keeps me sane and gives me a place to safely distribute negative energy) and my husband is on the phone with someone. I come in, sweaty and breathless, after pushing the last minute at a close to sprint pace, and head towards the office where he is sitting talking on the phone. I mouth the words Who’s that? and he tells the caller to hold on, then mutes the phone and says, Its a case worker from UHC. Immediately interested, I start to listen in to the conversation. He knows Im interested in whats being said, he knows I feel completely helpless and out of control when he takes these calls and doesn’t allow me to hear or have a word in the conversation, but sometimes he has this I-don’t-care attitude. And he has that now, he gets up and walks out of the office.

Ok. Well, I’ll follow him, I think to myself. Not intentionally follow him, but moving about the house to the places he is. He’s a pacer when he talks on the phone, he can’t sit in one spot and have any conversation. He walks around like a zombie, unaware of where he’s headed, without a care, just aimlessly walking. He ends up going to the back of the house in the mud room, so I go back there to drop my headphones and runcase for my phone — where, mind you, I keep these things, and when he sees me there, he gives me this, humpf look, throws his hands up and exits the room. Like he doesnt want me to know what’s being discussed or otherwise doesnt want me to hear. Ughhh I am immediately aggravated that he doesnt want me included in whatever conversation he’s having. I’m sure it was not really an important conversation, but that’s not the point. We had this happen once before when I requested a conversation with our surgeon the week before the surgery. A conversation with the person who was about to cut open my husband and slice and dice for hours. Andy did not have any questions, but I had a whole slew of questions I wanted to ask, and some of them Andy deemed as “not important.” I, however, thought they were all vitally important and I wanted to ask them regardless and hear the doctors response. So we took some time to write a list of questions. It was a bit of negotiation between what I wanted to ask and what he agreed to having me ask. Whatever, I got the majority of the questions I wanted in. The next day my husband calls me on his work cell because he had the doctor on his personal cell and he wanted me to be included in the conversation. Ok, awesome, only listening to the convo, I could tell that this was not the beginning of the conversation, it sounded more like the end of the conversation. So he asks me to read off the questions as we wrote them down on the sheet of paper. I start to read them off and Andy gives me this, we already talked about that response, next, he’d say. When I pushed that I wanted to hear the answer from the doctor, not the version that he would tell me later, he hung up on me. Like, legit hung up on me! I was LIVID! How could he take the call that I requested with the doctor and not give me the opportunity to ask ANY of the questions I wanted to ask! I was so pissed off at him, I took all his shitty cancer paperwork that he just spent 15 mins organizing in a leather binder prior to leaving the house, and literally threw it at the front door.

It was not my proudest moment.

The papers went flying everywhere. I sat there fuming and agonizing about the fact that I was not going to have my conversation with the doctor. I was not going to hear the doctor answer my questions and ask any applicable follow up questions that may arise because of the answers given. I wasn’t going to have that chance. And I was furious.

When he got home we had a pretty big argument. As I said, it wasn’t my proudest moment, it wasn’t our proudest moment as a married couple, but I felt completely brushed aside by him, like the questions I had were so unimportant that he just shrugged them off and didn’t care what I thought. That is what hurt the most.

Honestly, that’s kind of how I feel now. Sure, maybe the conversation wasn’t important, but damnit, I deserve to be included. Hell, I know more about his diagnosis and what the plan is and how to articulate all of that more than he does! He still can’t even remember the name of his type of cancer. Mu-ci-nous Adeno-car-ci-noma. I get it. It’s a big ugly word, but come on. Take some ownership in this. With everything I’ve given up for him, HAPPILY, I am not saying I have not happily done everything I’ve done for him, I have, and I will continue to, but a little thoughtfulness would be appreciated. At least to have enough respect to let me hear a conversation that interests me about the man that I love more than anything on this planet.

I get it. This is not really a big deal. You’re probably sitting there thinking that he has the right to have a conversation about his medical condition with someone in private, and you’d be right to think that. I mean, to be honest, after I get a bit of distance from this incident, I probably will too, it’s just right now, in this moment, I feel slighted. Like I have a right to the same information too. We are, after all, in this together, so what he knows, I know, what I know, he knows.

Listen. It’s HARD AF to be a caregiver. Here I am, basically waiting on him hand and foot, catering to his every whim —

Honey, our ice maker isn’t making ice fast enough, can you go out and get a bag from the store? Honey, a couple weeks ago I dropped off our basement TV at a TV repair place 30 miles away, and now its ready so I need you to go and pick it up. Honey, can you refill my water? Honey, can you hand me my pills? Honey, I dropped my phone on the floor right next to me and I need you to pick it up.

You get the picture. It’s exhausting, and a little thank you would go a LONG way. So, when a call comes in regarding his care, the control freak in me screams to be included in that conversation! It’s literally the only control I can have in this whole situation and he just rips that away from me! Andy and I have very different personalities which compliment eachother so well, most of the time, but sometimes, we struggle with communication because his needs are VASTLY different than mine. And him, relying on me for basically everything at this point, just exacerbates that difference and its hard. I am, admittedly, Type A. Type A AF. Complete control freak, need to plan, need to have a strategy, need to know what comes next. Andy, however, I wouldn’t even classify as Type C, he is so relaxed and laid back about everything, its infuriating … and delightful all at the same time.