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I started an entry this morning, but due to certain events it's gone. Someone probably left the lab top uncharged too long or some such thing. *Shrugs* tis okay. Which is funny because normally that would bug me, especially since I wrote some things that I found important, but today it doesn't. I woke up from a nap not too long ago and I've felt better since. My voice is even a little better and not so toad like. And the blossoming head ache that I was sure to have faded away. Anywho, I then went outside and ate some banana bread, because some wonderous person brought it and if I find out who it was I'll give them a hug. I considered having a hot dog, but over the last few days I haven't been able to eat anything warm. I'm not sure why. Had some hot chocolate yesterday, and felt sick afterwards. I don't think it was the sugar because I've been eating krispy creams and those work just fine. So do brownies. I'm actually sick of sugar foods, though, they're just easier to eat. I'd like to eat some fruit, but it all tastes sugary in it's own way, and I've had so much cantelope and honey due lately.

All day I've been thinking of things that I could write in here, things I could say to people, and at the moment I'm not caring so much. It's not that I don't care about the journal, but more like all of those things just don't matter. They will in about an hour when the lovely calm state I've fallen into wears off, but for the time being I'm actually doing pretty good. I have no doubt, though, that with enough talk about problems that will go away in a hurry. I think the biggest thing is I don't really want to talk to a computer. I know people read this and stuff, but when I write here I hardly ever write for them, I write because I want to remember what I have to say. What I've been doing and feeling. Way back in seventh grade I started writing journals because I suddenly got affraid that I'd never remember how I felt back then, or how important something was. I was simply terrified that I'd let all of my life slip away and never bother to remember it. Or rather I'd only remember certain things, and they may not be the important ones. I write in journals to work out problems for me, also. Getting it down on paper just helps my brain concentrate better.

But I figured out my problems this morning, and then when I was in with Maude. And I have no doubt that I'll remember this. Plus I'm gonna do a long entry in my real journal so that I can put in everything I want without any problems. At the moment I actually feel like talking, which is a bad idea in a few different ways. One being that my throat is scratchy and really not up for a conversation (being sick sucks. A lot). The other being that I have no one to talk to. Well, there are many people to talk to. But no one I really know. No one I can talk to openly. It's like, very vaugely, Sunday night when I needed to talk to someone. There was no one to talk to. While all of Maude's family is nice (or at least a large portion of them are) they're not friends. Or at least not close friends. And then of all of the friends that I have... who was there to talk to? I was sitting on the back portch clutching my cell phone going over in my head everyone I could call and it was kinda like when I was looking for food the next day. I'd walk past a table with all of my favorite things on it, then circle around it two or three times, then go back inside and drink water. The only people I had wanted to talk to where the only two people that I had no way of contacting. Well, I could talk to Maude but she's unconcious most of the time and swamped with people for the rest of it.

Yesterday was nice, though. Around here it might even be categorized as "good." Two seperate times I was able to lie down with Maude, with just me and her in the room. Both of these times she was pretty zonked, if not quiet completely out of it, but that's okay. She knew I was there, because she wasn't that out of it, and she let me just lie there and hold her hand. No one bugged us, there wasn't any chatter, it was just me there with my friend and that's what I'd been waiting for. Today the hospice lady had us all come out so that she could explain that we weren't going to be able to touch Maude or talk to her anymore. We can be with her and comfort her, but that's about it. It's because of all the pain Maude's in and what they're doing to help get rid of it. So now only two people are allowed in at a time, and we just get to be near her, not touching. That's where I took my nap. Me and Maude's brother, Mark (which she met Sunday), where in there, and we both ended up napping, but it was okay. I woke up feeling better than I had in quite a while. Soon afterwards Mark went outside to get his hair dyed and I just sat around waiting for someone to take my spot. Then I went and got food, then I came back in here.

I'm guessing she'll be gone by this time tomorrow. But it's just a guess. The pain has been getting progressively worse over the last few days, and the medication has been going up. At this moment in time, and keep in mind that is only at this moment, I'm okay with it. I'm sure by this time next week I'll be in a panick again, or over the panick, or in another anxiety attack, but for the time be I'm able to just let things take their course. And water is actually sounding good. And advil. That previously mentioned head ache is returning. I've been taking three advil every three hours from noon till when ever I go to sleep since monday. That's about how long it takes until it wears off and I start feeling the headache creeping back up on me. I do not need another migraine. I don't know how I'd handle it. Once they show up they don't go, and the only way to get them to leave is to go to sleep, like a whole night's sleep. Except once I have a head ache I can't sleep without sleep aids. I haven't taken any since Sunday, but before that, almost nightly, I was using sleep aid pain killers to doze off. And that had nothing to do with Maude, I've just been getting these migraines like none other. And then once I have one I can't deal with other things well. Other problems just overwealm me.

Yesterday, to get us "kids" out of the house, the older peoples sent us outside to haul branches and sticks and stuff around. We ended up starting a big bon fire and spent the next two hours or so tossing things into it and cleaning up the yard. It was a wonderful way to work off extra energy. When working off energy I have to do something useful. That's one of the reasons I went home and grabbed my croqueting stuff. I'm over half way through a scarf for my grandmother. I've also done push ups and crunches, because it helps keep me in shape. I'm not someone who can punch a pillow or throw things about a room or stomp about. Those are all quite useless and leave me feeling like a baby. I can yell and shout sometimes. Not at the moment, the whole losing my voice thing gets in the way, but if there's someone to yell at. The thing is that's kind of just to yell at whoever needs the yelling, too. It's more of a stress reliever than anything, and not one often used. I find that it's much easier to wait until my head clears then talk things over. If I don't then people tend to misunderstand what I'm trying to tell them. And then I get nervous about people not understanding me. I think I could put that on the top ten list of things I'm affraid of: being misunderstood. It sounds harmless enough, or at least not very important, but it really is to me. If we're talking about something that matters, or having a problem, I want you to understand my side of things because I'm sure trying hard to understand yours. The problem is that when I'm restless or stressed my mind is strained and not capable of working as well as it should. That's one of the reasons I've felt so clumsy these past few weeks. I'm just not able to get my point across at that time. So while I might try I end up butchering the simple phrase that I'm trying to say, and I manage to say it easily the next day.

But I forgot what I was going to say when I rubbed Mark's head. He got his hair cut today, and it feels like Maude's. I'm gonna head out and find something to do. Maybe run some errands or some such things. *waves.*

Talk to you guys later.
Aul














Edit: Found a recovered part of my first entry of the day. It prolly ends suddenly, and I'm not filling in the blanks. ^_^


My throat is soar. It's a pesky problem that serves to make me just a little more uncomfortable as I hang out here at Maude's. It doesn't help that I just woke up, so now I'm going in and out of coughing fits because I haven't coughed all night. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but I'm rather certain that havening slept has something to do with my symptoms being temperarily worse. So yeah, I'm sick. Not sure where I got it from, but my voice has slowing been fading off and cracking, then coming back. I sound like a toad. My nose is also runny sometimes. That's sort of a new development. Normally it gets runny when I'm all teary eyed, which hasn't happened yet today. Actually I've been able to keep the tears under control for awhile now. This is important because I most often want to cry when I'm around Maude, and you're not supposed to do that because it makes her sad or it makes her want to hang on longer. I'm sure you understand.

Right now I'm actually pretty calm. She's awake at the moment, lying in her room. There's six or seven people in there with her. And the room's not that large. I could fit in, I've discovered a few tricky spots to squeeze into. But it's not worth it. At least I don't think so. I don't want to smother her, so I normally stop in, tell her I love her, kiss her forehead, squeeze her hand, and come back later. When I'm lucky I can get on the bed, lie next to her and hold her hand. Which is ideally what I'd be doing all the time. It's a fought over position. Yesterday, though, I actually got time alone with Maude. She was in her so drugged up and out of it state that she couldn't keep her eyes open, and I didn't say much, but it was nice just to be able to be alone with her. Yesterday was actually a good day compared to others, for several reasons. To start with there weren't so many people here. You have to realize that at any moment during the day we could have 60-120 people here. And I'm not exagerating. at the moment we have over twenty between Mary's (Maude's mom) and Trina's (Maude's aunt) houses. And twenty is the bare minimum. We have ten people sleeping over at Maudes house (myself included) nightly, and then all the little kids and some other realatives sleeping at Trina's, which is basically next door. We set up a grill and a bunch of tent things outside so that people have a place to hang out and eat, and someimtes it's packed. Maude has a very big family. I had other reasons yesterday was good, I just forget what I was going to say.

I get headaches a lot. Over the past three weeks I've been having so many headaches, almost daily. Sunday night I had a huge one that helped lead into an anxiety attack. Not fun. To avoid further insidences, starting at about noon (an hour before my headaches normally start) I've been taking three advil every three hours. No idea how bad that is for me, or how that works, but my head hasn't been acting up too much lately so we're keeping it for the next few days.

Oh, I remember something. Yesterday I was hungry. That's a good thing because I hadn't been since Sunday morning. I'd spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday eating just so that the nice adults wouldn't badger me about whether or not I had. Sensei stopped by and would ask, "did you eat?" and I'd be like, "maybe I will later." she promptly kicked me out of the room and told me to come back with food. But yesterday I was constantly going about looking for food. In doing this I was faced with a different problem. There are many things I won't eat. Normally I would, but at the moment I won't. These include most hot foods. I started a burger yesterday, but got half way through and threw it out. This also happened with several brownies. I am, however, very capable of eating honeydue mellon and cantelope. This is a good thing because I love both of those and have been steadily eating a whole bowl of them. Which makes Mary very happy because she knows that the lack of fruit means I'm eating and she's so nervous about having so much food that she just wants people to gobble it all up, which is hard at times for these people to do.

Some of the great things about Maude's family is that they help us out. They go off and cook food for us, or bring salads or brownies or cakes. We've had people come in with stews and home made shortcakes. Someone brought chicken and french fries, another brought enough hot dogs to feed everyone (see above numbers for what that means.) One lady even brought toliet paper, which sent us all laughing because not only was it funny, it was such a perfect gift. We've probably needed it by now. The problem with that big a family is that they all want to see Maude. Mary's trying desperately just to keep Maude calm, so that when it's time for her to go she can go peacefully, and then there are times when twenty people are in the living room with her and she's trying to keep up with all the many conversations and it just isn't particularily good for her. Mary ends up kicking everyone out of the house. That's why I'm out on the couch right now. I just want her to relax.

Unfortunately that means I'm also not in there with her, and then other people are. Which bugs me because I'm affraid she won't know that I'm here, or that she'll want me to be in there with her. But she hasn't spesifically asked for me since I showed up. Which leads me to worrying about whether or not she cares if I'm in there at all, which I know she does, but I wonder how much and it leads to me being very paraniod and is all a bunch of crap because it really doesn't matter, but I end up freaking out about it anyway. Then the whole fact that I hadn't gone up to the hospital to see her when she was in the hospital for three days starts digging in. You see, I got a call from Austin on Friday saying that Maude was really in trouble and that she'd want me there, but naturally I don't get the message for three hours. When I do get it I rush to call, and get Jules, Maude's dad, who is now offically the worst person to talk to in such situation. He says she's stable, and a few other things, but nothing about her dying and me needing to be there right then. I talked to Maude who said she's okay and say that I'm going to go to work because I hear she's fine and that I loved her and such, but then I went to work. Then Saturday I was so hyped up about graduation and I figered that if something was wrong I'd hear from them. I do the graduation thing, go to a friends house for a couple of hours, come home and hear that Mary called and Maude's not doing too great. Again, no one says dying. Sunday I go to work early, stay there till five, go home, call Maude's house to see what's up. They say she's coming home from the hospital, but that I can come visit any time, it's an open door policy. Sunday's father's day, though, so I hang out at home awhile in case we're going to have dinner or something as a family. We don't, so I wish everyone my love and head out at about seven. I get to Maude's house where the crowds are already gathering. Everyone else seems to know that this is it, that she's dying, and they've all already been to see her at the hospital, and here I was, her best friend, who didn't manage to show up. Then I go into her room and she barely looks at me, not because she's trying not to, but because there are so many people and she's insanely drugged up. Besides, she was about to meet her birth brother. (she's adopted.) And I'm there thinking about how I'm there and I can't even really be with her because Bree is where I should be, and how she didn't even like Bree that much, and how there are all these people who I don't know who where there for her when I wasn't. And then I can't talk to her or explain to her or anything, because I can't get alone with her. And Trina said something kinda mean in an off handed way about me not visiting at the hospital and I just had to leave because I couldn't stop crying. Then I spent an hour hiding from everyone, first in the bathroom, then outside behind the house.

I didn't want to talk to any of the people here. I was tired of strangers walking up and asking me if I was okay. I don't like it when friends ask me if I'm okay.