When I was dying...

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile. But it's a hard one. Hard to think about and hard to talk about.

Last summer I was sick. So sick I was in the hospital for a month and then in a live-in physical therapy center for awhile after. At various points my friends thought I might not make it. My doctor thought I might not make it. Even I thought I might not pull through. But I thought we'd done an okay job conveying to Brynn that while I *was* very sick, the doctors and I were fighting very hard to get me better.

None of my friends took a picture of me during that time. I think that's one small way of knowing they're good friends. Jason Isbell sings a song with the lyric "One thing that's real clear to me, no one dies with dignity." And it's true. When your body gives out on you, it's ugly and shameful and very, very undignified.

At first I'd tried to ban my friends (and especially The Boyfriend) from coming to see me. The doctors had catheterized me and I was peeing in a bag. I didn't want *anyone* to see. I was even ashamed in front of my nurses. But I kept getting worse and my friends knew that even though my pride might be hurt, I needed them there. So they came anyway.

They kept coming too. They watched over me and watched my stats. They watched me get worse and my muscles get so weak I had a hard time lifting a teaspoon. They told the nurses when something wasn't right.

And Brynn came to see me. We tried to time her visits to where I would be alert and able to communicate with her, but it didn't always work out that way. I was so sick.

And so when I found this picture on Brynn's iPod a couple of months ago, I asked when she'd taken it.

She'd labeled it "MY MOMMA"

I assumed she'd say "when Katie brought me to visit" or "the day Valerie and I went to TJ Maxx then came to see you." I was not prepared for her answer. She said "when you were dying."

Not when you were really sick. When you were dying.

Cancer is so hard on the person who is going through it, but it's just as hard on the people who love that person, if not harder.

Brynn has been through so much since I was diagnosed when she was just 7 years old. I've been sick for almost half of her life. Think how scary that is! All the uncertainty of thinking the one constant in your life, the person who takes care of you, is dying.

And in that moment, when she really thought she might not see me alive again, she took a picture. Because even though my friends wanted to preserve my waning sense of dignity, Brynn just wanted one last picture of her momma.