Sometimes it's so scary being married to a sick child. My mind is always on her. And I know I'm supposed to be focusing on Walter or whoever right now, and that he's trying so hard to touch his toes just one more time, but when I tell him that I believe in him and that I know he'll pull through, I'm not talking to him. I'm thinking about home.

You don't know how tense it is, knowing that right now, while you're away, your day and your night, the reason you keep breathing, could be popping twenty Vicodins at once - the ones she had to start taking after you MUTILATED her in a little hissyfit, 'cause that's just how fragile she is. It's so terrifying, to know that the possibility that you're going to find her on the bathroom floor, blue and cold and stiff and in a puddle of bloody mucus is all too real. But it wasn't always mucus, at first it was foam, but you've been away so long that's it condensed, because obviously you had SICKER kids, that you loved more.

Can you imagine how it feels to know that just last week she was in the hospital, after you found her curled up on the KITCHEN floor, just basting in her own blood because she tried to carve out her own stomach? To get out the "bad things". And you weren't there to stop her and hold her until all the bad things went away. And it makes me sick to think that right now she could be slicing into that fragile skin on her chest, and then sawing away at her rib bones to try to prove to me that she REALLY doesn't have a heart to give to me, that it's been gone for years.

And her seizures are the worst part, because the doctors tell me not to hold her. No, just sit back and enjoy the show, or ignore it... It's like a fucking dagger to the gut every time she just suddenly falls over, and I don't have enough time to catch her, and I have to kneel and try to find her near nonexistant pulse, just to know whether she finally just dropped dead from having no energy left, or if I can hold onto her a bit longer. It's scary how sometimes we're just driving to drop her off at her therapy sessions, and her head just droops all the sudden. And I never get to know if she was just finally able to get a few minutes of sleep, or if that's she's just seized up for the third time this hour.

A lot of the times, when I'm driving home from work, I just cry, and cry, so that I don't melt down in front of a bunch of kids and make them go apeshit, and so I know my wife can still see me as a source of support. I don't want her to think for a second that she can't depend on you. Because crying makes you weak.

Sometimes I can't stop sobbing, and I'll just try to choke them away when I walk into my home. I'm ready to search the house, and perform CPR, and to call the police department to see if she's being held there again, for being a "nuisance". I've got 911 on speed dial, you know...

But I see my baby bundled up on the couch, staring half-awake at a blank TV screen, as if there's actually something on (she really does that just so she doesn't have to look at my face, or so I've been told). And I can't help but smile, and start to laugh. And suddenly, I forget why I was crying. I always sit next to her, and pull her close, tell her how much I love her. And she'll go on to describe these horrible examples of what she'd rather be doing/feeling/hearing/tasting/seeing than being near me, explaining to me how much she hates me. She doesn't really mean it, though...

... And even if she did... that's okay. I have enough love for the both of us.

And, every night, I sit there and watch her stick herself at least five times to make sure her glucose levels are okay, and to make sure that the pain stays away. And I always make sure that I curl up next to her, and wrap her in my arms, so that, maybe if she does die in the middle of the night, I'll be right there with her. And if she starts to seize up, then I'll wake up, and be there to comfort her.

And the next morning, I'll get up, 'cause I have to go to work. Usually, she's still awake when I get up. And I'll get ready, and still find her laying on her side, completely away. I lean down and kiss her on the head, and tell her I love her again. And she'll usually tell me how being with me makes her want to kill herself. I'll just laugh nervously, telling myself that she's just joking.

Then I find myself reading up on a new patient's medical history, how she's been in 3 car accidents already. She's only 11. But, I find my thoughts wandering, and eventually I come to say: Sometimes it's so scary to being married to a sick child. My mind is always on her, you know...