Today was pretty much all around a bad day. My mom was very unresponsive to us today, except for expressing some pain through sounds (which if you aren't used to them are rather frightening). The hardest part is when she has that pain and then looks at you and it's like her frightened eyes are boreing holes into your heart. My dad and I had her get two additional fentinyl shots in addition to her fentinyl patch. Her breathing when we left in the afternoon so that I could go to my orchestra rehearsal was rather small and shallow breaths and somewhat irregular. Her colour was absolutely terrible today and the swelling in her arms had not gone down at all. I asked her doctor whether she would be able to use that fluid, and the answer is likely no. As it turns out, he's probably on a plane to Nigeria right now or will be soon-his vacation to go see his father and sisters. While I am happy for him to be going, I also feel a bit disappointed that he won't be seeing my mom right to the end. It's not that I don't trust the doctor that he is arranging, it's just, well, I guess as a family we have developed a bit of a relationship with him. I'll say this...I don't think that I could ever handle being an oncologist.

The other really bad part of my day came when I found out that, having nearly collapsed during his history one class on wednesday, my favourite professor-my intro to ethnomusicology professor-had surgery and will not be back to January! And my course only gos through december!!! I'm very relieved that he is going to be okay, but am devastated not to have him for the rest of the course. And more than a little bit worried that the professor we are getting will be not nearly as good and will totally change the course layout and things-like making us do a final exam, which I don't want (not having a final exam was just one of the many reasons why I love this course). I don't even know this professor, so it makes me worried. I'd be okay with the other music history professor taking over because I know his style from music history three and liked it, but this makes me a little worried. However, I do admit that not having class tomorrow evening will probably be a good thing for me-more time up at the hospital with my mom. I've said it a few times now, but I don't see how she'll live more than another couple of days. I'm so agitated right now from all of this that I can't do any of the things I'm supposed to do, and the strong green tea I just had is probably what's making my typing speed even faster than usual (that's one of the reasons I write such long posts).

And the final bad part of today is the possibility that my wind ensemble conductor will not let me reschedule and delay my performance assessment that I'm supposed to do tomorrow at 10:50am...I let him know the reason and I expect he'll be all right with it, but I always worry exceedingly whenever I ask for things from anyone else. This is the first he will have heard (at least from me and I think at all) about my mom's cancer. I can never keep track of who around the faculty know about my mom's cancer and imminent death. See, the dean and his wife, who was my basic skills professor and who is now the instructor that I mark for, go to my sister's church. Then, the dean's wife's sister is the register in the office, and their daughter is in 2nd year at the faculty of music with me. My flute teacher has been along for the ride pretty much since my mom was diagnosed, and I would gather that the other flute teacher who runs the flute masterclass knows by now because I have not been at the past couple of masterclasses due to being at the hospital with my mom (I think that my flute teacher will have told him). My former 20th century prof knows because I told him why I was dropping his course-I wanted to make sure he didn't think that a good student was dropping out because he was a poor instructor. My intro to ethno prof knew that my mom had cancer, but I don't think ever knew that it was terminal (due to the time frame-he was my music history four professor last year and I needed an extension), along with my former theory prof from last year (same reason). I know that the rest of the women who work in the office know, because they've told me! But other than that, I don't know for certain who knows. Well, besides my friends and such.

It's not even the death that is hard, it's all this leading up to it!!!!!!! Every night I go to sleep thinking I'll get woken up with a phone call either that she has died or that she is going to die very soon. When she does her stop breathing thing I think "is this it?" but then she starts again. I have this constant infusion of adrenaline and other stress hormones running through me. It's no wonder that I have a cold. The time of contracting it pretty much coincides with when my mom said she was ready to die.

I wonder if other people in similar situations think and pray that the death will come soon. I feel guilty about, especially because I think it not just because of her but because of how much I am hurting, and how much my dad and sister must be hurting. All the time now I think that I just can't go on any longer, but then I do. My brain knows that this is going to happen, and logic tells me that it's probably going to be by the end of the week, but my heart doesn't want it. Not at all. Well, that's not completely true. My heart knows that given my mom's situation, it is best that she be free and although I hate saying go home to Jesus, I'll say it. What my heart doesn't want to accept is that there is no way for her to go back to normal.