December 15, 2006

Wow. I totally missed the entired month of November. Gah! Of course, it's been a helluva month full of family health challenges - my uncle was diagnosed with malignant brain cancer and my father-in-law underwent a couple of emergency heart surgeries and almost didn't make it. When it rains it pours, huh?

But ... my daughter is still holding her own. She's been see-sawing emotionally, but nothing terribly dramatic like last year. She'd been forgetting to take her progestine cream and sometimes forgets to take her other meds, so I'm sure that explains a lot of it. And she just survived finals (we've yet to see if she passed them) for her first semester as a college student. She also totalled her car then had the engine blow up on another. That's 2 cars in less than 2 months. I think that would throw anybody into a tailspin.

Still, as I watch her moodswings, I look back at where we were just a year ago and the difference is amazing. I can go downstairs to her room to wake her up and not worry about whether I'll find her alive or not. I can leave her with her younger siblings and not worry about their safety. I can argue with her and recognize it as the normal teenage power struggle that it is and not worry what she'll do in retribution. The stress and fear and worry is so dramatically LESS and the love and trust and hope is so much MORE.

We're closing in the year mark. I admit I'm trepidatious. New Year's Eve isn't my favorite holiday as it is, and last year's events don't do much to make me feel better about it at all. But, I am hopeful that we are past the darkest hour and that her recovery will continue, and that she will keep growing stronger and happier and more sure of herself.