There are days when I wake up and I just close my eyes again and I can't help but wish that I wouldn't have woken up at all. It's not that I want to die….I have a daughter I need to see through this life, but I do want to die in a way. I have been in great physical pain for more than 10 years and it gets worse all the time. It used to come and go and now the pain is constant. My body gets weaker, and sometimes I wonder what I will be like in 20 years. Will I be crippled completely? After seven spinal fusions and still more surgery needed, but no surgeon willing to take the risks….physical therapy that doesn't help, heavy narcotics that don't help…what is a girl to do? The doctor wants me to exercise but when I am on so much medication my energy is low, and a lot of times the pain is so great I just can't bring myself to. And then there is my thought process, the pain and medication are so distracting….I feel like I am not a good mother. The older my daughter gets, the less time she wants to spend with me because mom is not fun. Mom is always sick. Mom is always on her computer because she can't do anything. All I can offer her is love but not fun. What good am I? Would it matter to anyone if I slipped away in the night? I asked her how she would have felt if I had slipped away when I had my blood clots in June…if she had come back from her dad's to find out her mom had died, and she covered her heart and said I know you'd always be right here. Her therapist taught her that. So I know she's prepared for my death. She has to be, I can't have her growing up worrying about me and feeling like she has to take care of me. I want her to grow up living life and knowing that I am okay, and that if I do die I am still with her, and that most of all I love her. But sometimes I feel like all that is keeping me tethered to this body that hurts so bad is her. And that makes me sad, where did I go?