I'm exhausted. Physically spent. Emotionally, what am I emotionally. I don't know. I want to fall apart. I'm afraid, however, that I won't ever get the pieces back together.

I went to my mother's first chemo appointment today. Well, the first two hours of it anyway. We were finally able to pull a prognosis out of the oncologist. 40%. That is her chance of beating this thing. Doesn't sound terrible. Five would be worse, but ya know, I could deal better with ninety-five or so. In Texas, when there is a forty percent chance of rain, that typically means don't bother getting out the umbrella. I don't like the 'odds' game. It makes me nervous, very very nervous. I tend to have really crappy luck, so I don't put much stock in the whole percentage/odds type of outcomes. He said that in two weeks she will have no hair. In ten to fourteen days her blood counts will begin to drop. She may become anemic and can not be near anyone sick....Tough when you have ten grand kids. She will begin to feel a little better around day 18 or so, then go back for round two on day 21. They do it this way because it is all your body can handle of the drugs. Three rounds of chemo over nine weeks, and then they will do radiation directly on the places where they know the cancer is. His hope is that the chemo will kill any cells that may have already spread to other parts of her body, but we pretty much just have to wait for a new tumor to see if it works. If after the chemo and radiation, the biopsy of the same lymph nodes comes back normal than we are doing well, otherwise the whole thing will start over. Her appointment was at 10:30 this morning, and she finished the treatment at 5:15 this evening. I don't really want to watch my mother die..........Who does though, right?

I have a brother that I try to pretend doesn't exist. I won't go into details. I found out today that he is planning to get married in three weeks. I hate that he gets to have a life. And this isn't an ultimatum because I am not saying it to God, but if that man gets to have a child, I don't know that I could ever, EVER, make peace with God about it. I know I have no choice. I know it really doesn't even have anything to do with me. I know that God can do whatever the hell He wants. But I will be one pissed off little girl. How dare he get to have a life. How dare he have the chance at a family. I suck at this forgiveness stuff.

Did I mention I want to fall apart. But I know I can't. The pain would come out and swallow me whole. I hate that I thought I beat something, and now, three years later, it is coming back at me full force. Taunting me. I am not strong, I am weak, I need it and it knows it. It laughs in my face when I try to convince myself that I can cope without it. I hate me. I hate this. I hate feeling and I hate thinking. This is why it is safer and wiser to stay locked inside my self erected prison. I am not enough of a person to survive life among the living. The numb emptiness of the walking dead is all I have the capacity for.