04.18.04 - 11:59 p.m.

...and, still overwhelmed. I'm so tired that my body feels weighted. Someone has sewn lead beneath my skin to drag me down. Maybe someone wants to drown me.

Mom has now been in the hospital twelve days. Okay, now: thirteen days, since it is now midnight April 19, 2004. She was admitted on April 7, 2004. They cannot get her clotting time into the therapeutic range necessary for her given the big-ass blood clot she has in her inferior vena cava. She's been there so long that the nurses have changed their fancy little educational bulletin board from "What should you know about osteoporosis?" to "What should you know about DVT?"

So, according to the bulletin board "What should you know about DVT?" on the 3rd floor of Women and Children's Hospital, you should know that certain cancers, among them ovarian cancer, produce something-or-others that make your blood clot more. So, if mom has such a problem getting her blood thinned, does that mean she still has active cancer cells in her body? Or is that a residual effect?

Also, after twelve days of whatever they're doing not working: shouldn't they try something else?

Today, we took the dog to visit Mom, and brought a table and chairs and had a picnic on the banks of the river. Patches was good, as always, and Mom and I beat Dad and David at Trivial Pursuit. I made cheddar biscuits. I also made the English muffins my mother makes every Sunday morning, and I think that they turned out okay.

These are all just words; bare facts. I don't have anything else to offer in my exhaustion, or perhaps the words are a charm against fate: if i say it, it either will, or won't, happen.

I have no idea what to do. I'm completely spent. Dad's worse: he's short-tempered and crazy and careless. Well, not crazy, he's just exhausted and it's obvious and I don't know what I can do, other than what I'm doing. Except, you know, invent a cure.

Not so likely to happen.

Okay: tomorrow. She'll get out tomorrow. Please, dear god in heaven, let her get out tomorrow.