Decay

Today was so hard. It was a fucking awful day and I'm tired of everything.

I got up early and went to Long Island to see my brother. I don't care how much "better" he's doing, he's still lost about half of his brain capacity. Every now and then that really sinks in for me. Today was one of those days.

On top of that, he's running a fever and so they have to postpone the skull replacement surgery yet AGAIN. To make matters worse, there were clear signs of swelling in his face, especially around the eyes. This means the infection is probably in his head and the swelling is from infection-related fluids. My mom and I stayed at the hospital until around 2:00 pm when they had to take him to the emergency room. I'm still waiting for an update on his condition.

After that I went home with my mom and tried to eat lunch, but I couldn't eat much. My mom's uncle is also in the hospital (a different hospital though). He's dying from cancer--pancreatic cancer that has now spread to his stomach. He's expected to die at any moment. Last night he was throwing up so much blood that they're surprised he made it through the night.

This uncle is only 10 years older than my mom and was always around in my life. I never would have imagined something like this happening to him so young. It makes me worry about my mom. I think if anything happened to her, I would just cease to function as a human being. It really is unimaginable to me. My mom's uncle is at the best cancer hospital in the city, so my mom decided to drive me back to Manhattan and she, my stepfather and I stopped over to see him.

Again, it was incredibly painful for me. When we got there, we met his daughter by the elevators. She was crying in such a way that I just got the most awful feeling in my chest. It really hurt and it was everything I could do to keep from crying myself. His wife was also a wreck. But there was nothing anyone could say. Everyone, including my uncle, knows he's sharing his last moments with them.

The last time I saw my uncle he was perfectly fine. That was about a month and a half ago. How frightening to think that the cancer was there, spreading and killing him, even then. When we got to his room, I was shocked. He looks like a ghost. He is just a shade of his former self--pale, gaunt and thin, his face grimacing in pain. Blood was pouring out of the tubes coming out of his nose. He was moaning, his whole body completely pained and he desperately needed more morphine, but to give him the morphine would almost certainly kill him. He's just too weak. They said it would slow his heart-rate too much. His son and another cousin are staying the night. I think they're going to probably give the morphine to him anyway. He has no chance of surviving for long, so what's the point of enduring that kind of physical agony? We sat there for a few hours. A cousin of my mom's was there--one that I've never met, and it was strange because he looks just like her, and so, I suppose, like me as well. He kept staring at me. I know how he felt-- it's always strange to see another incarnation of your own face. It made me have strange thoughts about family... thoughts that I can't articulate.

So, what does all of this mean? I'm tired of the way I live and I'm tired of sickness and of death. I don't want to do what I do anymore. I don't want to have Narc drama or any kind of drama any more. I don't want to fuck my body up day in and day out. Right now I feel like I don't even want to keep this blog. I just want quiet. I just want to quiet all of this. I can't stand how much pain there is in life. I want to be with my family and I want people to stop disappearing.

Sometimes I think about my stepbrother as a little boy--the sweetest angel-faced little boy you can imagine. He was only two when I met him. I think back about that boy and imagine that only years away was this accident waiting to happen to that little boy--waiting to take away life as he knew it. Is this part of some kind of plan? I just don't know what to believe. But when I think of how full of life he was, I feel sick. I feel sick to my stomach right now. I mean, I know he's still alive, but we'll be lucky if he's in any way able to live without constant care and supervision.

Maybe it sounds like I'm being ungrateful. I don't mean for it to sound that way. I think it's a miracle that my stepbrother is here at all. And I've come to terms with death in general, having grieved the decay and death of my father and grandmother up close. I'm really not angry at the world. It's more like I'm angry at myself. I hate myself for all of this. Being around all of this pain... Being around broken bodies and seeing how it pains people that I love... And here I am, running around making a mess of my life for no apparent reason. What's wrong with me? Why don't I just grow up and take better care of myself already? Don't I have that responsibility to my family? I fucking hate myself tonight.

These are the things that are on my mind tonight. And here I am alone in my apartment and not sure what to do with myself. There's a choked sob caught in my throat. I don't want to be alone, but I certainly don't want company. (Well, anyone except B that is, but he's busy). I don't think I could stand it tonight. I don't want to go out drinking. I feel like I never want to drink again. But at the same time, without it, the night streches forbodingly ahead.

I hate this.

-hyde-