they say that when you are weak he is strong in you

I should explain, I should update. I should tell you about the last few days in bullet-points: doing too much work, overdosing on caffeine, moving home, but I can't be arsed. I'll just say that my first term at RH finished much as it started - with stress, Pepto Bismol, heaving into my en-suite and ending up on the phone to Trev in tears.

Then I got home. And it got worse. I love being home, and coming home has made me appreciate it so much more, how lucky I am to have my tiny house and my crazy parents. My crazy family. I should be happy right now.

I haven't mentioned that my nan's getting ill. The one that's still alive, obviously, she's taking what can only be described as a Turn For the Worst. The doctor gave us this thing called a Nebuliserm which sounds a lot more fun than it is. You put asthma medicine into it and it vaporises, then nan puts a mask on and inhales the vapor. It makes this really loud whirring sound and she sits there with vapor coming out the side of her mouth for five minutes.

Five minutes, four times a day. It's really not that much. But she's practically helpless. So when I say 'you put asthma medicine into it' I mean that I do that, and I switch it on and help her on with the mask and if suddenly, when I'm out of the room she starts to choke I have to run in and twist open the Ventolin capsule and vaporise it and hook her up.

And it means that when we're sitting watching Countdown together and the slow wheezing of her breath stops I have no idea if it's because she's cleared her throat or because she's not breathing.

When her head slumps down on her chest, I don't know if it means she's sleeping or dying. I wish I was dramatising this. My parents are out at work all day and my brother doesn't live here anymore. It's just me and her in the house, my grandma myself and the Nebuliser.

I am so scared, I'm terrified. What if she dies? What if she just dies right there in the living room?

I'm eighteen years old and I can live by myself and cook for myself but I can't make sure I get enough sleep and I can't regulate my drinking and my incident with the pro-plus on Thursday night has more than shown that I'm incapable of medicating myself.

So how is that I'm here looking after someone older than myself? How come I'm trusted to give her her medicine, to hook her up to this breathing machine, to nag her about her inhaler and flinch every time she coughs up bits of blood?

Didn't we go over this last year? I'M NOT STRONG ENOUGH FOR THIS.

Of course I'm not. And I'm not good enough or strong enough or calm enough to do anything that I need to do. I've had words from a hymn stuck in my head for days: make me a channel of your peace. That's my prayer. It's my prayer in the doctor's surgery, or when I'm arguing with my parents or when my granny's even more scared of the Nebuliser than I am.

I'm going to cope with this because I have to. This has nothing to do with being good or brave but everything to do with necessity - circumstances dictate that I'm the only one in my family who can look after her during the day so that's what I'll do. It's only in the day and it's only until we can get her to stay at my aunty's, where she'll be much better because they have an annexe especially built for her so she won't get tired and she won't choke and the Dalek Nebuliser can go back to the hospital.

In the meantime, biblically speaking, I'm going to get the hell over it and get the hell on with it. It's ok that I feel small. In fact, the bible positively encourages it. I completely and utterly relinquish control on this situation, I cannot deal with it and I cannot change it so I'm putting it in God's hands. And that, at least, makes me a little less fucking scared.