Monday, September 13, 2004

Life really sucks sometimes

So, I've been following the story of a little baby named Allie, who was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in April of this year. She will probably die sometime this week. She is just shy of 9 months old. This sucks.

I am to the point of almost obsession over this little girl and her mother's brave journal. My husband has begged and pleaded for me to stop reading it, that I am driving myself crazy over a family I don't know. But, I can't. I just can't. So, every day I bawl my eyes out, and curse God and all that. All over a sweet baby I will never meet.

The "what if's" play out in my head all day long. What if this were happening to my baby and family? What if, at her next appointment, the doctor finds something wrong with my angel? What if, what if, what if? I'm really good at driving myself crazy.

During my entire pregnancy I surfed the 'net reading about miscarriage and still birth. I watched terrible shows like Maternity Ward and Birth Day, where the narrator always has you hanging on to your seat wondering if every birth is just so dangerous, and why would women choose this on purpose. Then after labor and delivery I became obsessed about SIDS. Now, I'm obsessed with horrible, scary diseases, some the names I can't even pronounce. Why can't I shut my brain off?

This has always been the way I am. I have this morbid fascination with all things regarding death and despair. My favorite shows are Six Feet Under, The Autopsy Series, and Family Plots. How's that for family viewing? My husband jokes that I am just studying on the best way to kill him and get away with it. Sometimes I tell him I am. And I'm not joking.

I've always thought that this was an okay obsession to have, that it wasn't harming anyone. But, now I have a child and I'm trying to have another and I wonder what kind of life will they have growing up with a death-obsessed mother. Will I become on of these overbearing, overprotective kooks who won't let my kids go to school for fear of every crazy with a gun? Will I never let them go over to a friends for a sleep over for fear of the pedophiliac father?

I'm trying really hard, but some days it's difficult. Pessimism is a word that describes me to a tee. My husband and I were discussing me going back on medication for my "quirks." I really loathe that idea because I feel, for me, that the drugs rob me of some vital part of my personality. I am in no way talking down about medication for mood disorders here. I think they are wonderful and should be used when needed. It's just for myself, I hate the feeling of needing a pill to make me "normal." But, looking at that beautiful face every day, maybe it's all worth it.

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