I'm still here, but...

Do you know how it is when everything hits at once?

I've got some things going on including some legal and some medical.  For me, that is.

But one of my aunts got lymphoma of the brain.  She has RA.  She had surgery/treatment and she was to be recovered from severe dementia right now.  And she isn't.

Another beloved aunt has Parkinson's and is now coping with dementia.  She just broke her hip and responded well to surgery, but for some reason developed a terrible bedsore and possibly pneumonia as well.  I fought pneumonia myself after catching it in the hospital in late February, not as severe as hers of course, but it reminds me of how sometimes hospitals have bugs going around.  Incidentally (!) she is also blind from macular degeneration.

Anyway, I am praying for them.

Another aunt is developmentally disabled and I just received a call from the facility she is in because they needed a relative to give permission for her infected thumb to be treated.

My cousin and his wife had been the contact persons for aunt lymphoma and aunt developmentally disabled. But cousin himself had brain cancer a few years ago and now has leptomenginial carcinomatosis.  Not the greatest diagnosis.  His wife, who is a truly brilliant and strong woman who has been coordinating the responses to our family's current medical madness, has severe MS herself.  How does she do it?  I don't know but I am planning to go back east, where they live, and hope to help her out despite my own challenges.

My sister is being wonderful through this and I hope in some way I am helping her out.

Btw she and I both have SLE.

Our father died when we were very young.  I was six and sis was four.  We know little of his family.  Our mother's family is the one who is being affected by all of the above.  We don't have an endless supply of aunts and uncles and have already lost some.

All of this at once??? Maybe it is just the way of things.  In some way it helps keep me numb so I avoid a lot of searing emotional pain I otherwise would have.


Prayers for everyone.  Prayers for you, who read this.  Sending out love.  It is the only way to live.