Coping

I haven't been feeling very bloggy lately, not because I'm unmotivated, but because there is something very bad going on in my family right now. I have avoided writing about this issue for the fear of trivializing it, and also because I don't feel that I "do" serious very well. Instead, I have been writing about furniture shopping, and other every-day topics, although it is getting a little too difficult to do that with any sort of passion or humour, given the dark cloud that has been hovering over our heads for the past six months. My mother-in-law is ill. Very ill. In the initial stages of her sickness, I figured that I would eventually write about how she beat cancer, and all the amazing things that modern medicine had done for her. Throughout the summer, I think we all believed that it was possible. By the end of the summer however, it was clear that she had not won the battle yet. My husband and his siblings devoted a great deal of time to learning all that they could about her disease, spoke with various doctors, and even got their mom started on a regime of experimental drugs. They felt that if they could just shrink her tumour a bit, or reduce the swelling in her brain, then there would be more surgical options that they could explore. It hasn't happened this way. They aren't exploring any new options now. Over the past month or so, I have been visiting her at her home where everyone has tried to make her as comfortable as possible. Right now, she is in the hospital because of yet another complication. I was at the hospital earlier tonight in an effort to offer some support to my husband and the rest of his family, but I was of little use. With a flu epidemic going on at that particular hospital, and being pregnant, I chose not to hang around. I came home, feeling pretty useless, so here I am, writing about it.

Truth be told, I know that I am being somewhat useful, being the one who is holding down the fort. I am taking care of our daughter, the dogs, the house, and am making no demands on my husband whatsoever, which gives him the freedom to do what he has to do. It just doesn't feel like enough. I want to do more when there just isn't more that I can really do. I actually feel very distanced from the whole thing as I am home, keeping life as normal as possible for Pumpkin, and also to give my husband a place to come home to that is not completely depressing. When we visit my mother-in-law at her home, I always have Pumpkin with me, who keeps me busy as I chase her around, although I probably do more chasing than needed, just because I don't know what else to do when I'm there these days. I couldn't distance my self tonight, as I watched my mother-in-law drift in and out of consciousness in her hospital bed. I don't want to be distanced from her struggle, and the pain that the whole family is dealing with. I just want to do what I can, whatever that may be.