More Grim News

My mother's been in the hospital all week, heart issues (periocarditis) on top of everything else. And they drained off some of the fluid around her heart and found bits of tumor in the fluid. Which is really bad news.

I want to believe that there's a happy ending here, but I don't. They haven't even decided if they're going to continue the chemotherapy at this point. I really have no idea what's happening in the grand scheme of things, but it's looking increasingly like we're talking about a matter of months.

I don't know what to do, really. How to think about this. What I am supposed to be doing. I just hate it. And I know that on top of everything else, my role in this is already fixed. I'm going to have to be the strong one, the person who stays put together. I don't want to be. I want to be comforted. I want someone else to deal with this. I want to be someone else. And none of these things are in the choice set.

I don't think that there's any way to ever be ready for this kind of thing.

It's all not exactly a low-carb, weight loss topic, but in a weird way, it kind of is, too... I mean, sustaining weight loss is about doing it even when the rest of your life is happening, not just when all the things are lined up to make weight loss easy. Easier anyway. And that's part of the challenge here... how we are going to get through whatever happens next, while trying like hell to do the things that we need to do to save our own lives.

Michael is frustrated and discouraged, anyway. We went to the physical therapist last week, and she gave him a set of exercises to strengthen his legs... and apparently he overdid it, more pain, one more thing. I know that at some point this will get better, that the curve will reach a peak and things for him will get better rather than worse. But it is so hard to watch him, angry and frustrated and sad. I can't help him, and I can't help (apparently) being dragged into it... I mean, how can you watch someone you love being miserable and then just go on and do your stuff? I can't. I just don't know how to.