[Prudence]

Thanks for the kind words, all. I appreciate it, as I appreciate your thoughts and prayers for my brother. I still struggle with guilt. I can't stop thinking that there was something I could have done differently that would have made the specialist work out. Which is just adding to the existing guilt that this is happening to him, the "good" one, when I've been the worse person.

I don't know how to behave any more. I start to cry at work for no reason - which is significantly more complicated now that I no longer have a private office. I can't make it better and it just eats away at me. I'm supposed to protect my family and of course I can't. And I'm terrified of what might happen to me. At least Kevin's tumor is benign - will mine be malignant? Treatable like my dad's or untreatable like my grandmother's?

I don't know how to act around my family. If something good happens to me, I don't want to say anything to them because it's not fair for me to be happy when this is happening. And none of my complaints could possibly compare so they're best kept to myself. But then I'm withdrawing from the family, and that's not appreciated. I don't know how far to push and when to back off. None of us in my immediate family respond the way we're supposed to.

So that leaves me about as down as I can ever remember being. Which makes me feel more guilty, because I'm not the future cripple. But what right do I have to be happy now? How could I be happy? And why am I so concerned about what other people think about how I'm reacting.

Sorry I'm blabbing. I don't have other outlets, really. We don't talk amongst ourselves, my family.