TRYING TO KEEP IT TOGETHER

THURSDAY, Aug 25.

Maybe this will turn into a record of me trying to keep it together while I wait and hope and pray that my friend recovers. These past days though, it seems as if the situation is pretty grim. There are so many stories, nothing up-front, variations of diagnosis and I am finding it confusing. He won't talk about it straight and his daughter told me if I want to know I'd have to ask him. But reading between the lines, and having had a lot of experience in the past with people (dear friends and family) who have suffered from cancer, I can see this isn't going well.
The other night when I was there he looked fine, perky, happy and eating well. By yesterday they moved him to Pallative Care (ominous!) and since then he's been nauseated and not eating. If he doesn't eat he won't gain back his strength. And putting all the stories together I am beginning to see that perhaps his cancer has metastacized. Tonight he daughter talked about taking him home, getting a nurse in etc. I just don't know...

Our visits are very special to me and precious, considering they might be the last. And I am feeling really uncomfortable about the way another certain person moved right in from the beginning and is acting the role of 'girlfriend'. Tonight when I went there she was sitting on his bed holding his hand, and when she left, whispering sweet things to him. Up until he went into the hospital she had another boyfriend but suddenly she's taken on this new role and she seems to know all the inside details about his condition etc. I don't want to feel jealous or possessive over him but he and I have been friends for four years and I feel that she's pushing it a bit. Even the card she wrote to him was more like a love letter. Well, I'm trying to deal with this in a most dignified way. It isn't right to be playing tug-o-war over this poor man who is so ill.
But I don't want anything spoiling my visits with him. And stuff like happened tonight leaves me feeling very awkward.

Another thing that happened today was when I was having lunch with a friend to discuss Greece she started going on a big rant about Chilean men and said some very hurtful things such as "I don't know why you bother with him. He's not worth it." And other very nasty things. She's had a bad experience herself and seems to be full of poison over it.

By the time I got home tonight I felt a wreck. Just sat out on the balcony awhile looking at the sunset and having a cry. I can't let myself slip into depression over this but to tell the truth, if he doesn't make it I'm going to be totally devastated.