We're at a point where the unknowns are so threatening, and when fear outweighs all else ... .

I hesitate to put anything into words now since that old childish suspicion that giving voice to these awful thoughts will give them life ... so I'm carrying around fears that -- were I not so unsure of my ground, would easily be tossed off with the first breeze that wafts by. Reality is pretty stark right now, and all the bromides in the world won't make a dent in the gloom that lurks around every corner.

Except for Dorian. If you'll look at the photo in that last entry where she is just starting to crochet an afghan -- and compare that to the work she's completed over the past ten days (her accident occurred on November 27th, the night after the Thanksgiving Holiday -- you'll have some idea of just how productive and engaged she is. She is working on Christmas gifts for the staff of the nursing home. They're absolutely staggered at her generosity and busyness in the face of the pain and anguish she must be feeling when the meds wear off and she finds herself in that strange setting where she knows no one and where English is everybody's second language. The confusion she must be experiencing has to be an additional complication for her. But you'd never know it. She's adjusting in her own way, and a fine way it is.

I visit with her on the way to and from my office, and try to stop in at lunch time. I've given up all attempts at holding to any kind of separation. Now is not the time to work on "independence." To hell with being "best friend." I'm back in my mother's role with a vengeance, and I figure "the World" will just have to back off and adjust!

She did ask yesterday, "...am I going to be crippled, Mom?" She knows what that means. Her NIAD world is peopled with friends who are seriously physically handicapped. Wheel chairs are a fact of life in her everyday existence. Such thoughts must fill her nights in this strange nursing home with these strangers who "talk weird" but tend to her needs with care.

And at this point, I have no way to reassure her.

I truly don't know... .