Is the Cure worth the Treatment?

Every Friday for eight weeks I will receive a massive dose of chemicals that will make me feel worse than the disease I am fighting. I will hurt - literally to my bones - for the next four days. I will feel a little better the next and almost normal the next. Then it will be time to start the process all over again. For what?

Once the treatments are complete, the doctors still have not found the cause of the problem, so we will be back to more tests until we find the source. I have no idea what it will take to treat the source of the problem since I do not know what it is.

Eight weeks; two months. Pain that keeps me awake. Pain through which I smile and pretend nothing is wrong so that no one knows there is a problem.

At this point, only after week one, I am not sure that the treatment is worth the "cure"...

Family Minefields

Have you ever felt as if your family lives in a minefield? Perhaps it looks peaceful and cohesive from the outside, but if others knew the dynamics of its inner workings, they would be shocked. It would almost be better if there were rows of barbed wire in clear sight and if the minefields had signs at every border warning, "Danger! Explosives Ahead!" But we are seldom that lucky.

Despite our best efforts to do exactly as we are asked and assist in exactly the way requested, we often find ourselves the scapegoat in difficult situations. We agree; we voice our agreement; and then we find the knife - or the spear, as the case may be - plunged deep into our chest. Often we are brutally impaled and left to writhe upon that sharply pointed stick for all to watch as we die a slow and painful death.

No matter how many times it happens, we are actually surprised each time that it does! How can we allow ourselves to fall for the same ruse over and over again? Do we never learn? Are we gluttons for punishment or do we simply crave that familial acceptance so badly that we trick ourselves into believing again and again? We blame other family members for their bad behavior and their conniving ways, but we are the ones who are truly to blame, for we refuse to learn our lessons.