mornin, Punk.

time, and patience are the only things that will help.

I know it doesn't seem like it right now, and I hate to say seemingly-trite things to you now, Punk, when you're in so much anguish...

all I can offer is that I know it's true.

in a period of one year, I lost my two closest friends, and my mother.

and it was a drawn-out process, with one friend having leukemia, chemo, radiation, then brain tumors, brain surgery, and pneumonia. and a nasty divorce in the middle of it all.

the other friend had breast cancer, multiple surgeries, autologous bone-marrow transplants, chemo, radiation, infections, and a husband who took up with a fellow-teacher, and another broken family.

and my mom...a massive stroke that fried her Broca's Area, leaving her with a vocabulary of three words, and entire right side paralyzed... my sister and I moved in, and gave her full-time care, after Kaiser declared Mom wouldn't get better, (meaning they DIDN'T want to spend money on physical and speech therapy!) so, we researched it, and did it all ourselves...

and meanwhile, her husband (my step-dad) LEFT her, and yet another relationship was destroyed by the stress of major illness...

for three *years* Mom got more and more words, and was starting to have a decent life, when hammer #3 struck, stage 3 lung cancer, swift decline, followed by pneumonia, and there wasn't even TIME to do chemo and radiation...

and during all this, my sister was struggling with bipolar, and I had worsening MS.

after losing both friends, and my mom, I declined into hermit-hood, and a deep depression, gaining 70 pounds, and living in sadness and misery.

so yeah, Punk, stress, anxiety, anger, hurt, they all add up.

then, I got a HUMDINGER of an MS flare, and blammo, in a wheelchair, dislocated shoulder, numb from nose-to-toes, whole right side useless for months.

it took TIME, and patience, and LOTS of tears, to get past all of it.

hang in there, hang on with your FINGERNAILS if you must, but I say, it CAN be done!

after a few years, the depression and anger finally faded, and I tapered off all the meds, and the excess weight melted off.

didn't mean to go on and on about my problems during that disastrous period, just wanted to share with you that... even though you can't SEE it now, there eventually WILL be light at the end of the tunnel!