Grandma

I found a journal entry of mine about my grandma and decided to share what I wrote.
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Journal Entry 12-22-05
Cancer is a very bad thing. I know that. But not as much as when it threatens someone close to you.

It's 3 days 'til X-Mas. Not Good. I'm up late again. Everyone is asleep. Except me. Again.

I knew it. When we first heard about the tests. I KNEW IT.

What do I do? She's so important to me. I'm looking on web sites for info and I just posted a want add on Craigslist. I asked for anyone out there to include my grandma in their daily prayers.

I heard that writing your thoughts down in a journal helps but this is the 1st time I've tried it. The only way I can see it helping so far is that it is clearing some of the thoughts from my head.

I had an IM conversation with Paula tonight. She is a very nice person. Very supportive. Note to self: Don't IM when you're sad. It's hard to type through tears.

The cats in the house sense that I'm down. The keep hovering near me. They sit and look at me like they wanna say "Can I do something for you to help?"

I'm ruining X-Mas for the kids with my behavior. I'm crying all the time. I can't help it so far but I'm going to try to be more cheerful.

This is new. We just found yesterday (today actually) but it's 3:41 am so I guess it's technically the next day. I'm watching Rosanne reruns. Time to change the channel. Normally I like her but right now she's just pissing me off.

I put up a banner behind the wood stove that says "Merry Christmas". I almost tore the "Merry" part off. I didn't because the kids would notice. It seems to taunt me, though. Bad banner.

I drank the last of (boyfriend's) beer. Have to go buy more for him tomorrow. That was not nice. Maybe I'll become a drunk so I don't have to feel things. Is that why the rest of them do it?

THIS X-MAS SUCKS!!!

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This is something I posted on my other site (the only one friends and family know about) in March:

Originally Posted on March 2, 2006

This is my Grandma. Her name is Dottie, isn't she pretty? She has always been very good to me. If someone ever asked me if I had felt unconditional love before, I would be able to answer "yes" and say without a doubt that it came from her. I hit a lot of obstacles while growing up and there have been times in the past that I wasn't very proud of myself and the choices that I had made. Grandma has always been there with good advice and even when I don't follow it, she's still there. I've learned a lot about life and who I want to be from our long talks on her porch. I've always said that she has more class in her little finger than I will ever hope to have and she is still one of the most down-to-earth and nonjudgemental people that I have ever met. I love that combination in her. Everyone likes my Grandma. You just can't help it. I have shown up several times to visit her only to find an x-boyfriend of mine sitting on her porch. I always thought it was funny that we can cut all ties but they still stop by and visit my grandma. Who can blame them??? Anyway, this is my mini tribute to her, she's going through some medical issues right now but I know she's going to be Ok. I won't have it any other way.

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Back to today:

My grandma was diagnosed right before Christmas with lung cancer. She started Chemo and Radiation treatments a few days after that.

We are very close and I took it very hard. My family in town wouldn't even tell me the news when they got the test results back. They were all crying together at grandma's house without me. They had my aunt call me from Colorado to break it to me because she is the next closest to me besides Grandma. My aunt is a nurse and said the doctor gave her less than a 5% chance to live even if she went through the treatments. If she chose not to do them, she wouldn't last a year.

We took it as a death sentence. I'm not very good at praying so I figured God might not listen to my pleas for help. So, I got on the internet and added her to every prayer list I could find. In just about every kind of church. I looked up all of the Saints that were known for healing and printed out pictures of them to stash around grandma's house. She didn't know about any of it. I refused to believe that she was not going to be OK and told her to do the same. I told her to believe in the powers of positive thinking. That I believe that the mind can control the body and that she wasn't going anywhere because I did not give her my permission to and I always get my way.

I have been scared and I have been depressed for months. And I have never let her see it because I know she worries about me. SHE worries about ME. How messed up is that.

My grandma finished her series of treatments a few weeks ago.

She went to the doctor for an X-ray the other day. The X- Ray showed NO SIGNS of cancer.