Guilty Bone

When I saw Dr. Grenier on Wednesday she gave me the bone with stable marked on it and I was relieved. I was relieved. I am relieved.

I also felt guilty. I still feel guilty.

I went up to spend time with Sheldon and he was sleeping. Gilbert was sleeping on a chair beside him. I felt like I didn’t have a right to be there.

I went up to spend time with Jacquie and she was waiting for me to come up and asked if I saw the doctor and I said ‘No.’ I felt like I didn’t have a right to tell her I was stable.

I told Nathan when I got home and he was happy and said ‘Finally some good news. I thought you were going to tell me you had a month.’

He phoned Angelique and handed me the phone and I told her and she said ‘That’s great Mom, and I knew you were having the appointment today, as I was so worried with everything going on, I felt like I just couldn’t wait for you to spring it on us so I had to find out the date and so looked at your papers.’

We went out for lunch (Nadalene and Wahid were at work) to celebrate and I was crying when I told them “Yes, I’m happy, but I feel sad too.” They understood.

I told Wahid and Nadalene and we were all relieved.

The next morning I told Jacquie and she said ‘That is great.’ I told her how I felt and how she helped me so much and that I should be dying right now and her and Sheldon shouldn’t be in this mess. How sorry I am that she spent so much time with me and my family while I was sick, and how I wasted her time.

She told me ‘Don’t feel like that Renee, because there is nothing about that time that I would change. I was there for you because I wanted to be and you are here for me now.’

I get home and Nathan was upset and told me Jordy had come over and his Mom’s cancer had come back. Flo is one of my best friends and her breast cancer has come back in the bones and the liver. I phoned Flo right away and she asked if she could come over. “Yes, come right now.”

We are devastated, and we talk and talk. She said she never knew what it felt like. She knew cancer and she knew how bad it felt but now this feels like something else entirely to be Stage 4.

She asks if I heard my results yet and I tell her no. I didn’t want her to have to feel like she was happy for me when her world was falling apart.

Flo came over the next day and we talked and I told her then.

My Mom was happy when I told her. She was very happy and said ‘I am praying for a cure now for Sheldon and Jacquie.’ My Mom is beautiful.

My Mom got rushed to emergency on Saturday night and Nathan called me at 9 p.m. to let me know. I went straight to the hospital (the same one Jacquie and Sheldon are in). My Mom has pneumonia and I now pray that she will be feeling better soon. I go see Jacquie and she is having a hard night. I pray that she will be able to stand soon. I don’t go up and see Sheldon because I think I will fall to my knees if I do.

Before I leave the hospital I go and see Mom in the emergency room again and find out she is being admitted. My Mom is sitting up in bed and Jeannine, Colette, and Joey are eating chicken. My Mom says did you tell Joey your news, and so I am under the gun and say ‘Oh my results are stable.’ He says ‘Oh yea, that’s good.’

I am embarrassed. I have wasted people’s time. And now we have a real crisis on our hands.

Sheldon is very sick.