my grandma started chemo today

i haven't been around much lately beacuse i've been going back and forth between home and the hospital to be with my grandma.
she started chemo about an hour ago for b-cell lymphoma with a mass in her stomach. we dont know the stage yet beacuse we haven't gotten the results of her bone marrow biopsy yet.

please keep her in your thoughts. she's very upset beacuse we found out today that after she goes home from the hospital, she's actually going to a nursing home for a week for rehab (since she's been in bed for 2+ weeks).
she's very upset about this beacuse it hasn't even been a year since my grandfather died in a nursing home and she feels like she's going there to die.

---

Best wishes for your grandmother and your family.

---

Oh Abba, my heart is breaking for you. I have been where you are and there can be no comfort, nothing any of can say or do. It stinks. It's the worst thing life can hand us, and it's so unfair.

And the worst part of it is that the only thing you can do for your grandma is to sit by her bedside and smile at her, even though your heart is breaking. She needs to see your smile and feel your warmth and hear you say you love her, even though she knows you do and she knows you're sad and scared, she needs to see you smile.

So forgive this silly old Judy queen if I offer you this version of Judy Garland singing Charlie Chaplin's song "Smile." This clip always makes me cry. I hope you will watch it and feel it and lose it and live with the sadness, cry your eyes out, curse, moan, weep, wail, and then, when the song is over, take a deep breath, let it go, go back to your grandma, and do the only thing you CAN do in the face of everything, which is smile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmNAD7FzaQQ

---