Yesterday kinda sucked.

They couldn't give my mother the shot she needs before her radiation because her blood pressure was so low. She was also very dehydrated (she swears to me she is drinking enough) so they had to hook her up to an IV for two hours.

Needles trigger me. Not so much if I'm getting stuck, but seeing them in other people's arms is hard to handle due to my past. Looking at her and all she went through with my brothers, their addictions, criminal activities in and out of jail, and ultimately their deaths, well, when I saw the drip I couldn't help thinking the "junkies" finally got her too. Needles equal death in my PTSD head. If not by overdose than by AIDS and now...lung cancer.

That's how I felt when the hem/onc told me "you have overlapping hematological malignancies known as MPD's, Myeloproliferative Disorders and that I would require blood draws once a week. To have a disease that would be "needle" related was kind of ironic.

I felt that the junkies had finally found a way to stick a needle in my arm too and now it was my turn to die. I know this all sounds ridiculous, but it's a natural reaction when you're raised by drug addicts who actively shoot up at the dining room table and die.