Sistah Pat

It’s been such a long time since I’ve posted.  I don’t like to write about depressing things and I feel like all I do is host a pity party these days.  Still, it just keeps getting worse and worse and I find myself wondering who I am and what’s important.  I don’t even recognize my life anymore.

Mom is still dying.  Getting weaker and weaker.  Sleeping more and more.  Even when she’s awake, she’s not the same person she was.  Kind of has this strange little smile and talks about the weather.  Like she’s so out of contact with what’s going on around her.  Every time I see her, I feel like it may be the last time I see her.

And then, there was Donnie’s heart trouble.  I thought I’d weathered the worst of it when he had quintuple bypass surgery and came through it okay.  But they found that spot on his lungs…

He’s been going through all kinds of testing and it just kept getting worse.  Another spot on the artery that sends the blood supply to his left lung.  Then a possibility of liver involvement.  And a brain scan.  A month of everything being on hold.  While we schedule more tests and more scans and see more doctors.

And now, he’s in stage 3 of lung cancer.  Facing chemo and radiation and a life expectancy of a year to a year and a half.  The rate of remission is only 10%.  And he keeps saying, “It’s going to be okay, Honey.  We’ll get through this.”

I’m so confused.  I don’t even know what I’m supposed to feel anymore.  I do my crying in private.  I try to be positive and I feel bad if I even think about a future without him.  But I know I have to think about those things.  We’ve been married since I was 17.  I don’t even know how to be alone.  I’m sad and scared and just totally devastated.  I wander around the house and everything seems so trivial.  Who cares about the laundry? What difference does it make if the dishes are done or the beds are made?  I don’t know what I’m fixing for dinner.  It just all seems so pointless.  I look at the Christmas tree and there aren’t any presents under it.  I just can’t bring myself to go out and shop and look for presents.  I know I should but I haven’t.