Woke up this morning at 4 to use the faciilites and stand in the bathroom while Reuben used them too, which apparently has become one of my jobs as a mother. Since it is now 5 a.m. and I'm still awake, I'll tell you what has been going through my mind.

I've noticed lately that my body doesn't last as long feeling good as I think it used to. I have frequent head and back and leg aches. Case in point: yesterday I went shopping with Steve after dinner. Paul had come over with Haruka and was holding a session of the "I Hate Mathematics Association", with members Bethany and Abbie in attendance, and Jason was here to make people stop fighting, so I felt that it was okay to leave them to it. I sometimes feel like I'm taking advantage of people when I leave my noisy brood with them.

We were looking for cheap frames for Steve's classes to use to make Christmas presents with, so we started with Honk's and progressed through BigLots and RiteAid Pharmacy, took a detour to Maceys for breakfast food to gear up for chemo week, and ended at Dollar Tree, where we finally found frames for less than $6 apiece. Three cheers for dollar stores!

Since I had been ignoring the pain in my legs since RiteAid, I opted out of waiting in the cashier line and waited in the car instead. When we got home, I went up and lay down on my bed with my feet propped up on the wall. I followed Paul's advice and made sure to take a book, my latest discovery: Jacqueline Winspear, a different kind of mystery writer.

As I was jotting these things in a notebook, since I've forgotten where I put my journal, Steve mumbled in his sleep, something about me being brave. I don't feel brave. I feel unwilling and grumpy and apprehensive about chemo today, but I will get in Bapu's car at nine a.m. and check in at the desk, and admire the nurses' "Chemo Sucks" badges, and try to make jokes and work on the puzzle in the office. I won't kick and scream at the nurses who stick needles in Penelope's belly, and I won't cry to Dr. W (although I am now) and I will smile at the nurses and their tall IV pole full of plastic bags of clear liquid that drip into my vein. I will knit on Haruka's lime green hat with hot pink llamas, and I will fall asleep when the Benedryl drips in. And if I'm done in time, I'll get to have lunch with SueZann. And next week after I'm done feeling yucky, and next month when I have my last treatment, and next year and the years after that when I'm still alive, I'll think this was all worth it.

I think I'll tape my big heart card from the Young Women up on my wall today and look at it a lot.