some cancery tldr
Dad's been in the hospital since my last post. In addition to being constipated, he ended up having pneumonia (which, I learned, if not contagious like the flu; the more you know). They kept him around to treat for that, until Thursday when mom texted me with the ominous message that she wanted to get us kids to visit him in the hospital. This, to me, translates roughly to "Your dad's dying and he needs to see his family together one last time." I called mom to verify that I'd interpreted her message correctly, and she had to put Medhat on the phone to explain to me what was happening.
Dad's liver was failing rapidly and as I fought the urge to vomit I tried to imagine how I was going to get to the hospital, and be in the hospital, without passing out. Because, you see, since dad got cancer hospitals have made me rather nervous. Last year, after his surgery, I had tremendous issues visiting him in the hospital and looking at him and I think I stared at the wall through that entire visit trying to school my emotions; I had significant difficulty looking at him which lasted for several weeks after he came home. It was revolting to me to be reminded of the fundamental violence of cancer and cancer treatment.
Back to Thursday - since I'd had plans to watch a movie with Mark, I ended up meeting with him early so that I could vent/blubber and try and sort out what I was going to do. Final papers were fast approaching at that point - in fact, they were due yesterday and today - and for god's sake, my dad was in the hospital dying of liver failure. Medhat tried to keep me from worrying; he said, "His liver is very bad, his cancer is hurting it, so they're going to give him some chemo and see if it works so we don't have to panic." He follows this up with up with "But if that doesn't work, then we can panic." Thanks, my dear sweet uncle. Mark stepped up admirably and drove me to the hospital and stuck around without complaining or anything. I think he got along well enough with everyone, particularly Alex which aleviates my guilt for bringing a stranger into the dramaz.
It's been several days since then and it's frustratingly hard to get information out of mom - I ask her "How is dad?" and she gives a vague answer; my information has been coming primarily from hearing her give actual details on the phone to whomever (Bubber, friends, IDK) and then demanding that she elaborate.
At the point where the doctors asked dad if he woud like to be on life support when his liver had completed failing, mom called in dad's surgeon from a year ago who came in and after five minutes of glancing at the charts, deemed dad's liver failure to be completely unrelated to cancer. Oddly enough, the liver failure was caused by the medications dad was being perscribed for his back pain - hydrocodone and aleve. When I say oddly I of course mean absolutely not odd at all because that's what fucking drugs do to completely healthy people and in what world does cancer eat up a liver in the matter of three days?
And through most of this, mom's newly-reconnected friend Andi has been spending the night at the house. She's been gone for several nights but she's been very helpful and nice and enjoyable even if sometimes her humor delves into those weird misogynist places that I don't like. I suppose it's important to compromise on these issues in these cases. Mom's got a few other friends who have been helping but I was just in the kitchen looking at the pizza one of them bought and the sodas another one bought and got angry at what seems to be a good old fashioned compassion competition. I don't know them; I may be projecting.
He's still in the hospital, but he's doing better (apparently - again, it's hard for me to get too many exact details from mom so I'll need to go in myself soon). Today I turned in my big scary final for Dalsheim which also included a power point presentation. I stayed up all night trying to write the paper and then threw together the power point the best I could but apparently my presentation was "outstanding" but I think that's less to do with my public speaking skills and more to do with how effectively I was able to use theory with my case study (which, not even being arrogant, I was probably able to do better than most people, but I mean, I'm fresh out of Theory class from last semester so it's a skill at this point). I attribute my success to the late night infinite looping of Total Eclipse of the Heart. I have an extention from Starrett for his million papers. Russian exam friday.
Dad's liver was failing rapidly and as I fought the urge to vomit I tried to imagine how I was going to get to the hospital, and be in the hospital, without passing out. Because, you see, since dad got cancer hospitals have made me rather nervous. Last year, after his surgery, I had tremendous issues visiting him in the hospital and looking at him and I think I stared at the wall through that entire visit trying to school my emotions; I had significant difficulty looking at him which lasted for several weeks after he came home. It was revolting to me to be reminded of the fundamental violence of cancer and cancer treatment.
Back to Thursday - since I'd had plans to watch a movie with Mark, I ended up meeting with him early so that I could vent/blubber and try and sort out what I was going to do. Final papers were fast approaching at that point - in fact, they were due yesterday and today - and for god's sake, my dad was in the hospital dying of liver failure. Medhat tried to keep me from worrying; he said, "His liver is very bad, his cancer is hurting it, so they're going to give him some chemo and see if it works so we don't have to panic." He follows this up with up with "But if that doesn't work, then we can panic." Thanks, my dear sweet uncle. Mark stepped up admirably and drove me to the hospital and stuck around without complaining or anything. I think he got along well enough with everyone, particularly Alex which aleviates my guilt for bringing a stranger into the dramaz.
It's been several days since then and it's frustratingly hard to get information out of mom - I ask her "How is dad?" and she gives a vague answer; my information has been coming primarily from hearing her give actual details on the phone to whomever (Bubber, friends, IDK) and then demanding that she elaborate.
At the point where the doctors asked dad if he woud like to be on life support when his liver had completed failing, mom called in dad's surgeon from a year ago who came in and after five minutes of glancing at the charts, deemed dad's liver failure to be completely unrelated to cancer. Oddly enough, the liver failure was caused by the medications dad was being perscribed for his back pain - hydrocodone and aleve. When I say oddly I of course mean absolutely not odd at all because that's what fucking drugs do to completely healthy people and in what world does cancer eat up a liver in the matter of three days?
And through most of this, mom's newly-reconnected friend Andi has been spending the night at the house. She's been gone for several nights but she's been very helpful and nice and enjoyable even if sometimes her humor delves into those weird misogynist places that I don't like. I suppose it's important to compromise on these issues in these cases. Mom's got a few other friends who have been helping but I was just in the kitchen looking at the pizza one of them bought and the sodas another one bought and got angry at what seems to be a good old fashioned compassion competition. I don't know them; I may be projecting.
He's still in the hospital, but he's doing better (apparently - again, it's hard for me to get too many exact details from mom so I'll need to go in myself soon). Today I turned in my big scary final for Dalsheim which also included a power point presentation. I stayed up all night trying to write the paper and then threw together the power point the best I could but apparently my presentation was "outstanding" but I think that's less to do with my public speaking skills and more to do with how effectively I was able to use theory with my case study (which, not even being arrogant, I was probably able to do better than most people, but I mean, I'm fresh out of Theory class from last semester so it's a skill at this point). I attribute my success to the late night infinite looping of Total Eclipse of the Heart. I have an extention from Starrett for his million papers. Russian exam friday.