Update on my sister

I spent yesterday afternoon visiting my sister and helping her out with her rambunctious 2 year old. Her husband had taken her older son to his baseball game and was to be gone all afternoon, and although her eldest daughter stayed behind to help, when I arrived my niece was sitting on the couch reading as my nephew bawled on the floor, and my sister was lying on the couch, trying to 'rest up'.

My daughters immediately took charge, playing with the wee one whilst I sat and talked with my sister. He was soon laughing and playing happily.

She looks so frail. She is down to 115 pounds and confided to me that food tasted terrible and she has to force herself to eat anything. She is stronger, though, and is able to walk by herself through out the house. She tried to be the hostess, getting me a drink of water (wouldn't let ME get her one) and as she held out the glass to me, her arm shook. It is amazing to think how weak she really is.

She talked of many things and I listened. She talked of upcoming home improvements and how determined she was to live to see them done. She looked me in the eye and said, "I want to believe that I will get better." She then went on to declare that she was not going to wear a wig, so we discussed bandanas and turbans and the like. It was all so normal on the outside, but I was crying inside.

She also thanked me for coming so often since she'd been in the hospital. Her husband's sister lives less than a half hour away, yet she has not attempted to help in any way. My sister and I both live over an hour away and she said, we'd been so much more of a help. People cope differently. Perhaps this woman has difficulty being around someone who is truly and profoundly ill.

She begins chemo a week from tomorrow. Miracles can happen, can't they?