As Ben can testify firsthand, dealing with cancer is just utter fucking shit...

My sister has been in the hospital on and off now for 5 months undergoing surgeries, treatments, and general poking and prodding for her cancer. She's had two vertebrae removed and 2 others fused together. She's had a kidney removed. She's had a titanium rod put in her femur to reinforce it after it shattered from the pressure of the tumor inside it caused it to snap like a twig. She's been on Interleukin, thalidomide, and enough pain meds to drop a herd of horses.

Well, now there's a new tumor building on the nerve bundle between her brain and her sinus cavity. The left side of her face is numb, she's losing sight in her left eye, and coherent thought is a 50/50 chance, if that.

Basically, we're losing her now, and there's very little they can do. They have cancelled her second Interleukin treatment because her system is so weak from the first one that it will just kill her outright.

My mom is flying me out to see her next week, I'm just hoping that she'll even last that long now honestly, every time I can get her on the phone to talk to me I get about 2 minutes, if that, and it's almost impossible to understand her.

Not even the Cubs in the NLCS can lighten my mood at this point...

- Chuck