Life Blows

I just read an email that my mom forwarded to me from my brother. We were thinking he dropped off the face of Mother Earth. No, turns out that he has been trying to keep my sister-in-law from dying.

From what I've read, she was diagnosed with lung cancer in late June. It was already Stage IV by the time she was diagnosed; metastasized to multiple places in her body, including her brain. They removed a brain tumor. There was a tumor on her pelvic bone so large that it fractured her pelvis. They zapped that with radiation. The cancer has attacked her lungs, adrenal glands and bone tissue. She's got another tumor growing on her femur that they need to zap, but can't as her strength is not where it needs to be for the radiation.

She's two weeks behind on starting chemo. My brother says that it'll probably be another two weeks before they start that. He said that the doctors think she may not even live that long to start the treatment she needs. If she does, they are going to admit her to the hospital to hit her with so many chemo drugs, that she could die from the side effects alone. But, they'd be doing the treatment that way because of how long it's been since they wanted to start.

But, my brother says that there is a thin ray of hope. They only gave her a 1% chance of surviving the infection she had. She's still kicking. Not hard, but she is. Right now, though, there is nothing they can do to stop the progression as they're waiting for her to regain strength. He says that she can't even roll over without any kind of help. Before they can start treatment, she needs to be able to hold herself up on her walker.

I don't pray, but I won't be stopping thinking of healing thoughts. Positive thinking, right?

I need to figure out how to get to where my brother is. I can't afford it, but I need to get there. He's my big brother. He took care of me when I was a baby. He introduced me to Led Zeppelin when I was still in diapers (he's 15 years older than me). He's 18 hours away by car. Airplane is only a couple of hours. It's not a question on how do I obtain time off from work (I'm a stay-at-home-mom), it's a question of money.

Oh, I'll get out there. Question is: will I be there in time?