The Second Longest Week of my Life

Definitely not what I wanted to hear.

Note: This is not a happy, joyful post and it contains very strong language.

The last couple of months have been extremely hard, damn difficult as a matter of fact and frankly I am tired of wearing a smile on my face so I can pretend that everything is hunky dory. I've known since this summer that things aren't going well and we just got confirmation last week that my Mom has cancer in her spine and now I am waiting another week to find out if she has breast cancer on top of it. God dammit, I hate this disease.

I wish I could talk to someone who understands what this is like, but I am under constraint to not talk about it to friends and family until all the information is in per my Mum's request and I am (mostly) abiding by her wishes. 

Here in blogland I am safe enough to speak my mind and pour out my heartsickness, for personal reasons none of my family other than my husband know I blog, and a few select friends that know I blog are already in the know or not part of my family circle.

I am so fucking angry I just want to beat the living hell out of something, how many times do I have to face this? I lost my Mother-in-law to lung cancer, as a matter of fact the first day I met her she had got her news. I remember I came in the house, my husband had gone down to the basement for something and she looked at me and then through me and I think she knew that I was going to marry her son. Armed with that knowledge I was the first person she told, and she asked ME if she should tell her son, that was in July. Come November she was nearly gone, My hubby and I got married next to her bed November 23 2003 and she died at 5am the next morning. 

Then we had to face cancer again in the form of Leukemia with our 18 month old daughter for just about 4 years of treatment and now it's my Mom.

I don't know if my shoulders are big enough to bear this burden right now, and I know it's going to be me who is taking care of her and my dad through this, don't get me wrong I am definitely not complaining about that, I still have them both and I am grateful, whatever they need I will take care of. It's just that I am afraid that I might break down when they need me the most, not only am I having to face my Mom being sick, I am also having to deal with a custody battle for my eldest daughter and having to shore up the rest of my familys' needs. I can tell you I am not looking forward to telling my daughter's that Grandma has cancer and the sad fact is they bloody well know what that means.

I guess I can safely say that I am feeling very alone at the moment and I really don't feel I have anywhere to turn to for support. Usually my hubby is a rock but this time I think it's too much for him to take, my parents have become his surrogate parents and the timing is terrible too, November is usually hard enough for him because of losing his Mother so I don't think I'll be able to ask him to help me with this too much.

I also don't have many friends left, most of the people whom I considered friends disappeared when my little girl had cancer, not that I was too terribly surprised by that. Most people don't understand how insular you become simply because it's necessary, how could I plan anything, even a coffee date when inside of 15 minutes we might be at the hospital or on a STARS airlift to the Stollery in Edmonton? It was also very difficult to plan around her blood counts, if they are low the least little sneeze could put her in hospital for a month or ICU.  For crying out loud I couldn't even get my dentist's front desk administrators to understand that, no matter what I did or showed them they still persisted in trying to charge me $75 fee if I missed my appointment without notice!

The other side to that is the simple fact that my head space is completely different than that of most people my age, it's hard to connect with someone who is complaining about not being able to afford the second vehicle or cell phone when you are simply grateful that your daughter survived one more day. I can't help but see these things as petty and unimportant and they can't understand that.

Now that I've completely depressed you with my tale of woe, I think I can move on to my quilting news. For obvious reasons I've set aside all other projects to work on my Mum's quilt:

GIANT GRANNY PANTIES!

Designed by & Image provided by:

That girl... that Quilt

You know they say, there is always a reason for everything, even though I planned to have my Mum's quilt done for Mother's Day, there was always this persistent little voice in the back of my head telling me to get the fabric ready, what to buy and I should do it right now even though we can't really afford to do it right now. (That's what credit cards are for right?! :D) 

Over the years I've learned to listen to that little voice even if it means a little hardship for a couple of weeks, it usually knows what it's talking about (good ole' sub-conscious). 

Of course I am (as usual) very glad I listened, I've got everything I need and some good motivation to get it done.

The fabrics I selected, only to realize that I am missing 1. I need a good contrasting center square, and hopefully I have something in my stash that will work even if it is severely lacking in blues, teals, greens, creams and muted pinks. Which of course is the color palette I chose lol.

A couple of the different contenders so far, but I think I am going to have to dig deeper.

Passion in creation & life.

Chris.