Hallowe'en 2008 is too far away.

I can't wait that long! Hurry up, you Coraline Movie makers!

On a more serious note, I've got to say this; because it's been hanging about in my head for a while now.

I think, my mum deserves a medal. Or something more useful to her than that, but of equal prestigiousness (is that even a word??) I'm sure lots of people think this about their mums, but I'll tell you the reason: My gran (that's my dad's mum, my mum's mother in law) (Not that it makes a difference) is currently, sadly, well... let's face it, in the process of dying of what started off as stomach cancer. This is a very crude way to put it, but unfortunately that's what it is.

If it had been up to my gran's GP, she'd have kicked the bucket by now alone at home on her sofa, in agony, such is the utter uselesness of that doctor woman. I can't talk about her without spitting.

But not only did my mum heroically march in and drag my gran to the hospital to be properly diagnosed and treated, she also has, ever since this has started, been going round my gran's house *at least* once a day to see how she's doing, get her to eat and drink, and, occasionally, help her get washed and dressed. And this started last hmm... October, I think, so that's over 6 months of constantly looking after my gran.

Now, obviously I think my gran deserves to be looked after like this. She's a lovely woman and I just cannot believe that after all she's been through in her life she now has to face this. I feel pretty bad for not helping out. I guess I've got a good excuse in living so far away, but come on. If I really wanted to... The fact is, that I'm not sure I could do it. Part of me just wants to hide away and wait till it's over. Seeing her deteriorate the way she has over the last few months has actually made me start to think that I would have preferred if she'd been killed quickly in a car accident or something like that. I know that that's not true and I don't like thinking like that. But I just can't help coming up with terrible thoughts about this. Another example would be: Maybe in the long run her suffering will make her death easier on everybody. Gaa. I don't know.

Ok. So she isn't dead yet. And for the moment, she's back in hospital, and being fed properly. She's now got an inoperable tumor in her gut somewhere (her stomach's been taken out), and even though her bloody stupid GP keeps undermining her confidence, her oncologist seems to think if she can only get her strength back up, she could have a good while (what's that mean? Weeks? Months? Years??) longer.

So for now, we can only hope. Maybe she'll recover enough to be silly again. That's something I always liked about her.

But in the meantime, I'll keep my fingers crossed that nothing of this sort ever happens to my mum, or, for that matter, my dad or Mike's parents, or anybody else in our family. And if it does, that I'll be able to look after them the way my mum looks after my gran.

Wow! That was *quite a lot* of information you maybe didn't need. But there you go. It had to come out and I feel a bit better for it.