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I’m regressing. It’s directly related to Mama’s condition. When Mama is ok (or at least seems ok), then I’m able to actively participate and contribute in a way that is a fair representation of my capabilities. When Mama isn’t ok, I can’t focus worth a damn.

Today is her 6th chemo treatment – today, starting at 10am and continuing for approx 5 hours, she’s going to be injected with Taxol, Avastin, Arridia (calcium), steroids, and Benedryl. The CT scan done two weeks ago showed that there are no changes in her liver. None. Zero. Zip. Five treatments of some of the most toxic substances invented by man, and the spots are the exact same size that they were in Nov, down to the f-ing centimeter. And the lump on her head is growing. It’s the biggest it’s ever been – the size of an egg. It can no longer be disguised by her thinning hair. She looks terrible… she’s dropping weight (which under normal circumstances would be a good thing, but this is so not normal), she’s pasty, her hair is so sadly thin, her teeth have turned yellow from the chemo, and the lump on her head keeps growing and growing.

And the most upsetting thing of all is the look in her eyes… she’s losing hope. She looks like a terrified little girl. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make it better. I don’t know how to fix this… any of it. I’m coming to the realization that Mama may very well die of breast cancer. Not today, not tomorrow, but before her time.

But that’s an interesting phrase… “dying before your time.” If you believe that God has a plan for all of us, and that’s it’s predestined before the foundation of the world, then it’s impossible to die before your time. Your time is your time – you die when the number of days that was allotted to you is up. So if this theory is true (and this is the most comforting theory for me right now, and so it’s the one I’m going with), then Mama’s date is already marked on God’s calendar, along with Daddy’s, mine, Bobby’s and even Baby H’s.

It’s just so much easier said than accepted… the words are easy to form, but the actual realization that Mama (and Daddy and me and Bobby and Baby H) is going to die is hard to understand, much less be ok with. The ladies on my message board have found a way to detach themselves – at least, that’s the face that they write with. They look at their treatments as they would someone else’s… like they are discussing someone else. When I first found the message board, it was comforting because they’re so ALIVE – and anybody who’s that alive can’t be dying. But over the last few months, as I’ve seen more people come to the board because they’ve just become members of the most horrible club in the world, and a few have left (permanently), I realize that if I stay long enough, some of the people that I’ve chatted with will die. They will leave – they will be gone. The cancer is going to get them. And I can see the fear in their words… not all the words, but occasionally, when they’re not being witty and amusing, I can sense a tinge, a layer of fear under the surface. They know it’s coming. They’re finding acceptance of their fate through words, through sharing their thoughts, and treatment stories and pictures of their children. But even though they are using their words, and my mama’s not, they’re all on the same path.

I can’t think about Mama dying, yet I can’t not think about it. It’s with me every day – I go through a day, a week, even two weeks, of feeling normal, but it’s always there – if not on the front burner, then simmering on the back with the smug assuredness that it’s time at the front will come again, and again, and again. This is the new normal.

And I’m not feeling all happy and accepting and chipper about it today like I was yesterday – today I’m feeling scared and upset. Not even angry anymore – it sucks, but that’s the way life is. I can’t think about my children not knowing my mama. But I can’t not think about her leaving. I know that breast cancer kills. But I’ve started finding comfort, small comfort but comfort nonetheless, in knowing that it doesn’t kill instantly.

Tom told us this weekend about the father of one of his baseball friends that just died of cancer – he was buried in his camo pants because that’s what he asked for. He had time to plan his funeral, to prepare himself, to choose his favorite pants. Tom said that his widow was surprisingly composed – that she was dabbing tears, but not really, truly crying. But why should she? She’s been crying for months and years – she’s been preparing for that day since the day that the oncologist said the word “cancer.”

And in a lapse of judgment, I asked Mama, Jennifer and Tom which they think is better – the long, slow, eventual but inevitable death of cancer, or the sudden, split-second death of a car wreck. And no one answered except Jennifer, because she still doesn’t realize that Mama might die – she said car wreck because the other is too hard on the family. Wrong answer. If I had to say goodbye to my mother (and indeed, it appears that I may at some point), I want to be able to say goodbye. I want to have the hope that not only will she be here when my children are born, but she’ll also be here into their memory-forming years. That they will clearly remember their grandmother. And there’s even the small, but still flickering hope that she’ll see them become adults – when they get their licenses, go to their proms, go to colleges, pierce their noses and eyebrows, and that she one day will dance at their weddings. With a car wreck, it’s gone in a second – all the hope and pictures of “one day” are dissolved in a single second.

So yes, I prefer the illness. I never thought I would, but I do. I prefer the opportunity to say goodbye. I prefer the knowledge that we need to take advantage of each small time, even though with that knowledge comes the dread of the future, and the guilt each time I stay home to balance the checkbook and mop the kitchen instead of going to have dinner with my mother. I imagine what the car wreck would be like – we would be normal family, who went shopping and went off birth control and had snippy little fights without a thought of the future implications… But the time without cancer – from May 2005 to Nov 2006 – taught me that even when you have a lesson, you forget. During that 1 year and 7 months of blissful ignorance that it was running through her bloodstream, and our lives were once again going to be forever altered, we dropped back into our routines. Our nasty, ungrateful routines – the kind that you have when cancer has never been an issue. We forgot. I don’t know how, but we did. I think it’s safe to say that we’ll never forget again.

I want to talk to Dr. O’Rourke about some stuff… he’s out of town today, so Daddy and Mama are going to be meeting with Hunter. I have mixed feelings about this – I’m starting to feel like every time we talk to someone other than O’Rourke, we take the chance on having our information corrupted. In my opinion, it’s better to filter all your info through the SAME filter…. We’ve established a baseline with O’Rourke, and talking to other oncologists, technicians, etc has done more harm than good. He may be a hope-crushing-pagan, but it’s better than having a flighty, falsely positive onc with misplaced optimism.

I need to do research and email O”Rourke about the following:
– Xeloda – oral chemo. Would this be an option for the “maintenance chemo” that O’Rourke has mentioned?
– Gemzar – usually used with Paclitaxel (another member of the taxine family?), IV chemo
- Carboplatin (commonly used in conjunction with Avastin) – IV chemo
– Radiofrequency Ablation – internal radiation; usually used for primary liver cancer and metasized colon cancer. Most effective on small tumors (2 inches or less). Usually not an option is there is active cancer outside the liver (would the two small spinal mets rule her out?).

Daddy keeps talking about the lump on Mama’s head “turning around and going into her brain.” I could be very, very wrong, but I don’t think that’s how breast cancer usually works. Usually, the cancer follows the path of liver, bones, lungs, brain. The head isn’t involved at all, which makes it unlikely (I think, I hope) that the lump on her head would cause her cancer to skip directly to the brain… that’s usually the last place it goes (and it’s good that it goes there last, because your days are very numbered after brain mets appear). But then again, Mama’s head met is completely unusual – she has proven again and again to be an exception to the rules. So maybe Daddy’s freak-out is well-founded.

I’ve been looking forward to lunch all day… I just want to escape and go fixate by myself. And Belinda just emailed me asking if I have plans. I don’t want to go with her – I like her, but I’m really feeling internalized right now. But I know that going with her is probably the best thing that I can do. Go to lunch with a normal person like a normal person, and then come back this afternoon and work on my job instead of fixating on cancer. I HATE CANCER. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Ok, I need to go to lunch with her… it’s time to put on my normal face again.