Paralyzed.

I don't usually write about my mom's illness.  It angers me, saddens me, and robs me of emotion all at the same time.  But today I feel the need.

In case you haven't read the tabs on my blog, my mom has ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.  She's was diagnosed nearly two years ago now.

She is paralyzed from the neck down.  For weeks I have been saying she has "no muscle function" and the other day someone said something about being paralyzed, and it dawned on me, that's what she is.  Paralyzed.

She's losing control of her head.  She can't pucker up to kiss me.  Her ability to chew and swallow foods gets worse and worse.  Her ability to talk is 90% gone, and when she speaks, she is extremely difficult to understand.

When I got married in November of 2007, I imagined how excited she would be when I had babies.  I'm an only child, you see, so my babies were her only grandbabies.  I knew she would spoil them so, love them so much, be our go-to babysitter.  We even discussed she and my stepdad keeping the kids when John and I went on an adults only vacation.

None of this would ever happen.

She held PJ a handful of times when he was a tiny baby, when she could still move her arms and still walk with assistance.

She's never held Maggie.  She never will.

She's never hugged either of them.

She's never, ever changed a diaper.  Fed a bottle.  Picked them up in the air and watched them smile and giggle down at her.

She's never been able to go shopping and pick stuff out by rifling through the racks.

She's missed so much of their lives because she can't come to our house.

She didn't come to PJ's birthday party.  She'll never be able to come to one of Maggie's or any of PJ's future parties.

She's never written them a birthday card.

She's never wrapped a present for them.

My own mother didn't meet my baby girl until she was over a week old, because she couldn't come to the hospital when she was born.

My mother in law is our go-to babysitter.

My children will not remember their grandma.  If PJ does, it will be in a sense that is not her.

ALS traps you inside a body that does not work.  It leaves your brain in tact so you know everything that is happening to you, and you know everything you cannot do.

Because of all these things, she is suffering.  She is in more pain than any physical ailment.

Because of all these things, and many, many more I haven't listed, I don't want her to live this way anymore.  She's not living.