Christmas in July

I've decided that because of all the crappy stuff going on in my life currently I am not celebrating Christmas this year. It's one added stress that I just can not add to the already precariously swaying pile of b.s that is my life.

So therefore, Christmas will be in July. I will decorate a tree in my yard, I will give gifts in the summer and I will enjoy a ice cream cone instead of a massive turkey dinner. Maybe by then my mom will be better. Maybe she won't, it's hard to say, but it's something to work towards instead of working against.

Mom's back in the hospital - it's more serious than last time. On Friday she went in for a routine blood check. She'd been feeling very sluggish and out of it, and figured she would require a transfusion. However, once they had taken her blood they instructed her to go home and they would call with the results as it was taking longer than usual.
Before she got home though, the hospital had called numerous times saying to come back right away, her blood count was down at 35, compared to the normal 120 that a healthy person lives at. Technically speaking, there is no reason she should have still been alive. People's bodies just do not function with that little blood and oxygen.
They pumped her full of 4 bags of blood - thats 4 pints/a litre (I think) - over night on Friday and started to monitor her vitals. Because of the extreme lack of oxygen, her heart had to work 3x as hard and thus she was at risk for a heart attack and/or stroke.
Currently she's still extremely exhausted, even though they have got her blood counts up to about 90. She doesn't make much sense when she talks and drifts in and out of sleep.
I don't figure they are letting her out of the hospital until she's capable of functioning somewhat independently - and she has someone to help her out at home. And because there isn't anyone who is able to be home 24 hours a day I don't imagine when that time will come.

I am exhausted. Mentally I have just checked out. I go about my daily functions and try to find something each day that makes me smile. Work is a good distraction, but the minute the weekend comes I'm back in the car driving home again to see the family. I need a vacation - put my life on hold and just go somewhere. Where? I don't care. When? Now would be preferable, but I can't really do that.

I try not to think about what is going to happen down the road. I don't like to think about having to move home. Thankfully no one has put that pressure on me recently.

I don't want anything for Xmas this year, nor do I want to feel I should give people things. Yes, it's better to give than to receive - however I don't have the ambition to come up with any ideas for what people would like - and a cop-out gift is not something I want to do. Instead I'll take up the holidays at a different time.

There is only one thing I want this holiday season - for my mom to get better, or to go in peace, if thats what fate has in store for her. I don't want her to suffer any longer, and I don't want my family to have to constantly be thinking "what if".