A death in the family

Over night my sons ageing rabbit passed away, he bought him about 9 years ago with his birthday money.  My son is 19 now, he came in yesterday in tears because the rabbit was quite obviously suffering from old age, he spent most spare time he could with it, and checking on it, between work and bed.  This morning he tapped very gently on my door and came in in tears to inform me that poor Sherb had passed in his sleep, and that he would take the dog for her normal walk before work and give Sherb his funeral this evening when he gets home.  The dog has been outside to the hutch a few times today whining at the hutch.  She seems to understand, but not quite.  All of this and the fact that my treatment doesn't seem to be going brilliantly at the moment.  Lots of pain which seems to be spreading beyond they normal sites.  The consultant now has me on 14 painkillers per day of varying strength along with other tablets to try to protect my stomach lining and to try to reduce the inflammation of the liver.  I have started to worry about how my son will cope when anything happens to me, and how the dog will cope, much as I love her, she is great company, how will she understand.  How will they all cope.   

New baby

I learned today that a very good friend of mine gave birth to her second baby girl in the early hours of this morning.  It started me thinking, my own grandchildren will have two choices, either they will grow up always knowing that Nanna has cancer, is that any life for children, it has been awful for me watching my own teenagers living with knowing their mum has it, and that it is incurable, or they will grow up only knowing me from photos and stories as I did with my own grandparents.  It seems very much like Hobson's choice to me.  As far as I am concerned of course I want to know them but I don't know if I can cope with the thought that they might know me and lose me.  What do you think is worse?  I would love to know. x

A meet up with an old friend

I caught up with an old friend yesterday, we used to live near each other, she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year.  She is a nanna, with another grandchild on the way, it made me realise that I am half way through the longest time that was suggested to me.  That gives me the chance to be there for both my children's 21st birthdays, and my son's girlfriend's 21st birthday.  It doesn't give me the chance to be the nanna I want to be, I want to be able to take my grandchildren to pre-school and school and see them achieve their exams and be happy.  At 43 I should be able to plan for that.  We will see what happens with this treatment. I have pains around my liver from time to time, it was almost constant but now it is more rarely, hopefully that means the treatment is effective.  We will see, the trouble is their idea at the hospital of it being effective is it being ongoing.  That would mean me being tied to the hospital two weeks out of every three.  That will make going back to work difficult and making any other plans difficult too.  My motivation for uni is dwindling, I have two weeks to write an assignment of around 3000 words on ... you have guessed it motivation.  I think I will have to put another mitigating circumstance form in.  I hate that because it feels like admitting defeat.