Annoyed, Verging on Angry

My mom found out today that her cancer is growing again. I don't think it's even been a year yet since she finished her last round of chemo - or perhaps it's been exactly a year. And she was in a medial trial to prevent a recurrence and everyone was pleased with how her blood work was looking - yeah, so much for that. So she'll be starting up chemo again and I'm vacillating between depression and anger. Which I guess is normal if you consider the grief cycle and blah blah.

Three rounds of chemo isn't a good sign. The continually shortening periods of remission aren't a good sign.

At the end of the day, I'm angry and annoyed at myself for being angry and frustrated that I'm annoyed with myself about a perfectly legitimate feeling (even though I seem to be the only one who's anything other than resigned.) I feel like it came completely out of left field - we were supposed to have another year, at least, of remission. Maybe more. And now the clock's ticking again.

Because mom doesn't do chemo all that well. Oh, the doctor says she does. Mom even seems to think she does. But chemo screws up her blood thickness and that's such a delicate balance it's like she's always right on the verge of another embolism (or so it feels to me.) And then her immune system goes to hell, which means that I worry about bringing my two little germ factories anywhere near her. Because it seems like any issue she has turns into pneumonia immediately when she's on chemo. And it's not like she breathes well to start out with. Chemo also kills her cartilage, and her knees are already nearly shot. What will another 4-8 months of chemo do to them?

And I know better than to worry - I know it doesn't fix anything or change anything or do anything other than upset my family because I'm not taking this well (note to my family: please don't feel like we have to talk about this. I'm not doing well. I'll let you know if that changes. I don't need jollying up.)

I've said it before, I'll say it again: cancer sucks.