From Caren -

I fear every night will be my last and that somehow I won't wake up - somehow my second chance was a mistake. I don't fear death. I fear losing the only battle I never new I was going to have to fight and escaped its loss. I fight against the fear and tell myself that it is ego talking and that weak part of me that I never let anyone see because that part of me isn't worth giving attention to....that part that tries to pull me into the depths of such deep sadness and lack of hope that now my fear is that the concussion might win and leave me in a puzzle where I get to see and feel all the pieces, but don't get to put things back together. I cry constantly, I feel week in body and spirit, Some days are q fight just to exist.

Here's the deal. I choose life. I always have!! There is too much I have earned and created to give up on. I am damn near fighting for it as each moment passes - and I feel so alone. I know I am not and my family and this blog helps a lot, but sometimes the strength to keep going seems invisible when you look around for it .I focus every day on the potential and gloriousness of what was..... and what can be after I have overcome all the fears. I struggle with this...the overcoming part, where I didn't before. I feel I have always had the strength to accomplish things, to push the boundaries and succeed and get anything I put my efforts to. I have always felt successful.....until now. Now....I feel....invisible.

I won't give up. I am just trying to get rid of the physical pain in the body and find where I went in the midst of it all. I know I am here....and yet it seems like I'm missing,

Thank you for your belief in me and your encouraging words. Some days, it seems, they are all that get me through.

Happy St. Patrick's Day - hail to the Irish whose fighting spirit lives on a bit in all of us.