Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Cream Eggs and the Great Pumpkin

No more news on Carolyn that is necessarily encouraging. She is at home now, waiting for her biopsy results. Robyn said that the plan is to treat it aggressively, which surprised me. I would have thought that Hospice was going to be the solution, but I have a grudging admiration for her willingness to fight such a hopeless battle. I doubt that I would be that strong.

I have been so tired today, so absolutely overwhelmed by the routine of daily living. Other people seem so resigned to the endless cycle of cooking, eating, cleaning, just to go to bed and do it all over again. I know that I should be grateful to be a part of this, but I am still perplexed. Is this what I am supposed to do?

We did, however, come up with a fun Easter plan for our coworkers. I had jokingly told Craig that we were having an Easter Egg Hunt at the office on Friday, and then we decided that an Easter Egg Hunt is just what everyone needs. So we went to Publix and bought an basket full of Easter candy, and I have spent the evening stuffing eggs. We are going to sneak into the office after hours tomorrow and hide them. I heart easter eggs! I am, however, over full size cadbury cream eggs. I love the mini ones- they are just right. The big ones, however, are just too much for me to handle. I got a cup of coffee and relived my first coffee/cadbury cream egg experience (8th grade year book trip to Birmingham, Alabama- Elizabeth Batich, roller skating, dress up and Beck's new Loser CD- or was it a cassette? I don't even remember). It wasn't the same.

Craig's Easter Comment (aka why I have to raise my kids Catholic):
"On Easter Sunday Jesus will rise again! "

Criag is the only person who gets Jesus and the Great Pumpkin confused. (Then again, Jesus doesn't really rise again, right? Or not until the second coming... which I can never say with a straight face. Extremely childish, I know. But it still makes me snicker.) Not only am I going to hell, apparently I'm going to have to ask for directions.

What I'm reading: If You Could See Me Now, by Celia Ahern. 2 stars, listening to it on tape during housework. At the gym, I 'm listening to Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination, by Helen Fielding. 3 stars, 2nd listening.

Monday, April 10, 2006

thick air

Craig's grandmother is sick. Very sick. When I came home from GFSS Tampa on Sunday, he told me that they found cancer in her lung, and in her liver. She had a double masectomy when we were freshmen in college, but now I learn that the cancer has come back- in her breasts, in her bones, in her brain.

I am frustrated and feeling lost, becuase I do not know how to help my husband deal with the grief that he doesn't even know he is going to feel. How is Rebel going to deal with this? How is Robert going to survive without Carolyn? There is talk of treatment, but I honestly can't see how chemotheraphy and the accompanying discomfort and pain would be worth a few extra months. That may be heartless, but if I learned anything from my grandfather's illness, it is that we have to let people go- you can not live forever, nor would you want to.

Roy is not doing well either, and the thick pain that is hanging over the Gulledge family like a cloud is suffocating. I feel like the sky is about to open up on us all, and I can see the storm coming, I feel it raise the hairs on the back of my neck, but I am helpless to prevent it, and helpless to protect the family I have grown to love as an extension of my own.