Since everything I write here is private from everyone in my personal life (or it should be anyway) I use it to vent my frustrations and sad bastard thoughts. I’m not sure if I’m cool with that. So for the time being, I made a tumblr site HERE that I’m giving out to everyone. If you like it, spread the love.
Doc says my medicine should only be taken when I’m in pain and I should stick to the meds he gave me when I last saw him. When I was in the hospital, they were interested in my elevated white blood cell count but I told them I just had it checked and it’s fine. It’s 23 thousand right now and was down to 20 when I got it checked a couple weeks ago. Not a drastic change but the doc says to get it checked out every 2 months to make sure. He still hasn’t told me anything about my stomach. If I knew what was causing it, I’d feel better and could avoid the pain. But I don’t know what to do now.
I went to the hospital yet again last night. I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when my stomach felt like it was swelling up and I puked out my guts and medication for 2 hours. It didn’t feel like it was going away and I was alone without a car so I had to call an ambulance. I don’t even want to think about what that’s going to cost me. The EMT was nice though and on the way to the hospital we talked about how good the sushi place is in Saginaw and the haunted house I worked at. I’m going to post pictures of that later. I’ve been trying to take more again but my camera sucks and I didn’t think to bring it to the hospital. I felt weird using my phone in the ER, I doubt I would have taken many pictures.
They still don’t know what is wrong with me. Gave me a new medication, something to drink every 6 hours that is going to fuck me up. The prescription says not to drive and be ready to get a refill because it’s really addictive. Sounds funny. When I was discharged from the hospital, they didn’t bother to unhook me from the machine, just had me sign papers and pointed me towards the door. Real helpful. I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow, let’s see what he says.
I hope he says it’s something like an appendicitis or an inflammation. Something obvious that I can fix so I know what I can do to avoid it.
The funeral was nice. Rained on the way to and from New Jersey but that day, the sun was shining and it wasn’t very cold. Several things were off that day. There was a private viewing for the family but this was more than a week after he died and it was obvious he was starting to turn. His fingers and nose were turning black. I thought there was going to be a sermon at the viewing but that was planned for the burial. The minister got stuck in traffic anyway and couldn’t make it. A reception was planned to take place at my grandfather’s old firehouse but we didn’t find out until that afternoon that it was torn down, so we all met at a seafood restaurant instead.
I was outside talking to my uncle’s boyfriend, swallowing back dayquil and cough medicine as fast as I could when they announced they were closing the casket to head to the cemetary. I wanted to say goodbye one last time and carried a pin in my pocket for this moment. I don’t know why, but I wanted to put something in the casket. In my living room, there are dozens of plaques from some of what he’s achieved. Hats from all the companies he’s worked with. 65 years of volunteer work as a firefighter. But one plaque for donating a gallon of blood. I donate blood. That’s what I thought whenever I saw it. Whenever I went, I thought of that wall. When I donated a gallon, all I got was a tiny pin. Not the same as a plaque but it meant just as much. I achieved at least one of things he did and it made me feel proud. That’s what I pinned on his shirt before they closed the casket.
At the burial, there was a color guard. I wasn’t expecting that. The minister didn’t show so we all just shared memories. It was only a few minutes before they lowered him into the grave of his second wife. Then we all ate shrimp.
Thank you to everyone who gave me their condolences. It means a lot to me. Thank you.
Alright, this is hard to write so I’m just going to get it out.
On Friday morning, my grandfather died. I didn’t go see him that morning and I regret it. He passed away around 11. I’ve been in shock mostly because we saw this coming for a month now and he’s been in hospice. The hardest part is sleeping at night because that’s when the memories and everything come flooding. The viewing was here in town on Tuesday and a lot more people came than I expected. He’s being buried in New Jersey on Saturday and I’m driving there in two hours so for once, I won’t be writing and will have a reason not to.
Alright, before I lose all of my readers, here’s what’s been going on.
Remember that pain in my abdomen I had a few months ago? It got bad the other night. Real bad. Throwing up didn’t help but I shouldn’t have to make myself throw up to feel better. With all that’s been going on, I didn’t want to go to the doctor or tell anybody but after an hour of being balled over in pain, I had to go to the emergency room. They took some x-rays, blood tests, and gave me some medication and I was feeling better. They think it’s an ulcer or an inflammation but didn’t seem too concerned. The real problem was my high white blood cell count. I tried donating platelets before and they saw the same thing. They took another blood sample a week later and it came back the same. My doctor gave me an appointment with a blood doctor but I don’t know if I’m going. I don’t have insurance and this is going to cost a fortune. I haven’t even gotten my hospital bill yet.
If it’s something bad, I’m not sure if I want to know. I won’t tell anyone else.
My father is still in the hospital. After he got better, he went to a rehab clinic/nursing home for a week so they could moderate his eating habits and help him gain strength back in his legs. He hated it. I brought him a foam pillow one day and he yelled at me for not being there earlier and told me not to come back. He’s not happy so I’m not taking it to heart but I keep thinking about it.
His blood sugar crashed while in the clinic so he went back to the hospital. He likes it much better there. He has constant assistance, people walking in on him all day long, and he isn’t surrounded by neglected old people. Or at least he did like it.
When he got better, he was released into my care. I got a hospital bed and oxygen tanks for him, the whole shebang, but I didn’t expect him to be in the state he was. He was loopy that day and not making sense. He still wouldn’t eat much. I hate to spoonfeed him baby food and ice water. To make matters worse, I got a list of meds he had to take but no prescriptions. I gave him what I could but it would be days before I could get the rest. Days I didn’t have. The next day, he told a nurse that came by to help that he wanted to go back to the hospital. It was the most I heard him say in days. She said he shouldn’t have been released, that he wasn’t ready.
He’s in a hospice now, not even hooked up to an IV. He got a blood transplant and some pills they say but I don’t believe them. Starting today, he’s not allowed to have any water. His skin is bloated because of water retention and his eyes follow you around the room. He’s there but he’s not. We expect him to go any day now. My phone is on me all the time now because I expect the phone call. A coffin is already ordered and I spoke to an undertaker.
This summer, he insisted on driving to Jersey by himself. I was worried but he said he was still capable. He’s not that far gone yet. The day he went in the hospital, we planned to go to the museum. He kept apologizing and I told him it’s okay, that we’ll go when he gets out. A month ago, he drove me to the pharmacy so we could pick up his medication. We went shopping. He was fine. He was talking. He was moving about. I used to get annoyed by him but now I’d give anything to have that back.
I’m going to see him at the hospital now but I can’t say goodbye. It hurts too much to say it once, I can’t do it every time I see him.
I’m sitting here as the sun rises drinking a cherry cappuccino (that’s much stronger than I expected) and a banana nut muffin that’s so good it makes me feel guilty. Doing anything is making me feel guilty. My grandfather is in the hospital right now. He went in around midnight and with any luck, he will be out today. This is what I’ve been doing, this is why I haven’t been writing. So much has been going on and most of it has been stressing out about my sister, her kids, my grandfather, and the girlie. I think things are getting better between the girlie and I so thank god for that, but the rest are still there to stress me out.
This is the fourth time in the last month that my grandfather has been to the hospital. Mostly related to his blood sugar. The time I checked on him and he was clutching his throat and unable to talk scared me. Yesterday, he wasn’t feeling all too well. He looked exhausted and worn out. He couldn’t go to the bathroom, his stomach hurt so bad. It was around midnight that he was calling from the hall, shaking, telling me to call him an ambulance. His insurance pays for his hospital stay if an ambulance takes him but not if he walks in. I don’t understand that.
He seemed much better off this time. Conscious and able to talk and walk. For 85, he’s doing damn well. There was nothing I could do so I waited behind.
At 2:30 am, I walked in as they were wheeling him away for x-rays. That’s when the worry set in. The ER wasn’t busy. It was quiet. Only, you’re not allowed to say that there. It’s “nice”, they say. Why is he going in for x-rays now? The nurse told me he’s losing blood and they’re not sure why. Not much blood, she assured me, but enough that they want to keep him. Enough to scare me.
I’m not close to my grandfather. I remember visiting him when I was little. Going to the Jersey shore where he lived and sitting on the back of a fire engine when he went to work. My grandmother died right before I was born from lymphoma and he remarried a year later. She also died from cancer a few years back. Like I said, we were never close, but he’s the only grandparent I have left and I’m scared to lose him. I guess when your grandparents are gone, you lose a part of your childhood. You become one generation closer to death.
So Tony wrote an article on the LAist which included the word “Fuck” in the title. He’s getting flack for it now like it really matters. The title is a quote from the article about something that is much bigger than the word “Fuck” ever could be.
“The president had no interest in the intelligence,” said the CIA officer. The other officer said, “Bush didn’t give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up.”
It’s this stuff that makes me want to run for the hills. How can anyone defend this?
-The nano iPod is ugly and goes against the purpose.
-Touch iPod is nice but what’s up with 16g being the most? I couldn’t get down to 16g of music on my iPod if I tried.
-Classic iPod seems the way to go. Just like your regular but now with coverflow, a ton of more space (160g) and more battery life which is most important to me right now. But I’ve been trying to get rid of most of the music I don’t listen to. The incentive of more space makes me want to keep buying more.
Map of the World if land were water and vice-versa.
System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, Mastadon, and Josh Homme and Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age will be performing with the Foo Fighters on the MTV Video Music Awards, which will air only once. I guess they want to boost their ratings for the one showing. I liked SOAD a few albums back and Queens of the Stone Age put out one of the best albums this year so it might be something to see. Foo Fighters haven’t done anything worth listening to lately, however, and I’ve never heard Mastadon.
Crowd pictures from Coachella that look an awful lot like an orgy.
Larry Wachowski is now a chick. I want to shout Shenanigans on this way but it sounds legit. It’s not often you hear about someone high profile having a sex change. But neither Wachowski is high profile so I guess it works.
