brief update

Back from NY again. This time home was different from a few weeks ago. The weather seemed to condone mourning instead of adventures. It was cold and rainy for 3 of the 4 days I was home. Mom had to work during the week and so I was on my own, with naught to do but clean and sort through Dad's things. A depressing task any day of the week. But I still think that these trips home are helping me deal with the loss. It's good to talk with Mom and be in our house.

I certainly do feel more like myself than I did a month or so ago. It seems that the break from school was well needed and well deserved. Hopefully the next semester wont be as onerous as the summer session was.

Hmm, I find myself with nothing to say. Toodle-oo!

The 'To Do' lists are mocking me...

The 'To Do' list and I are not really seeing eye to eye right now. I had two days off and basically managed to do zilch on my list. Not that I didn't try, but things just weren't happening the way they were supposed to.

For School I needed to get:

• malpractice insurance
• student ID badge from Bridgeport Hospital
• Physical
  
• Drug test
• register for Child Psychology
• request transcript for my A&P summer classes to be sent to BHSON
• Hippa Test printed and completed

And most of this needs to be done by tomorrow with proof dropped off at the Hospital's Industrial Medical Center. The only problem is I couldn't get my physical schedule until today at 2pm and my appointment at the medical center is today at 1pm. So essentially this means I'll be making a 2nd pointless trip down the the medical center tomorrow to drop everything off.

The other important detail nagging my conscience is my car. I've been delaying and delaying getting a new license and registration in CT and found out last week when I was home that my NY inspection was expired (and not just a little expired, but WAYYYY expired, as in expired July of 2009!!!) And my registration is up this month. So now I'm scrambling. But while I thought I could go do everything at the same time at the DMV I was apparently very wrong. You must get your license FIRST. Because you cannot get CT car insurance without a CT license. THEN I have to get an emissions test and THEN get insurance and THEN take the car BACK to the DMV to get it registered. (All for the approximate cost of 3 arms and 2 legs.)

Ugh. I'm hoping I will have all of the school oriented stuff done between today and tomorrow and can deal with the car nonsense next week.

School starts in like 3 weeks! Ahhhh!

The balancing act

I'm back in Connecticut after a six day homecation with my Mom. We had coffee on the back deck, walked the dog, swam in the lake, fed the deer, visited my Grandparents, played in the woods, shopped, went to open mic night and basically hung out and talked and relaxed. It was wonderful. A bit hard going home for the first time with Dad gone, but it was great to get to just be with my Mom and talk and cry and laugh and just be together. Mom's had too much time alone.

I feel a bit more like a human being too after a few days away from everything. I needed the time to wrap my head around my Grandfather's illness and take a breather from school. The time to learn how to balance everything that's going on. As I told Jim when I got home, I've been feeling more and more like someone whose been told to juggle and then tossed knives and burning brands. I keep getting cut and burned and as soon as I get any kind of rhythm where I feel like I can handle the load someone throws me something new.

I'm hoping this breather and renewed state of mind can help me keep going.

The hits just keep on coming...

Grandpa's surgery was planned for today. They opened him up and closed him right back up again because apparently he has an aneurysm right by his bladder that makes it impossible for them to do the operation. So now we are forced to go with radiation treatments, which only had a 10% chance of helping him.

I'm supposed to be at work at 2:15 today. I called out. I'm going home tonight.

Can't we just catch a frigging break once and a while??? This whole "disaster domino effect" is getting old. And frankly I don't think my Grandmother will survive losing her husband months after losing her oldest son. Can we just stop?

summer break

I'm finally finished with my summer classes. Took my last Anatomy and physiology test this morning. I don't think I did as well as I would have liked to, but I'm sure I didn't fail. My heart just wasn't in it this time. I couldn't think and didn't do all of the bonus questions. C'est la vie. It is what it is, and all I need is a C for the class and I had a 90 average before this test so I'm not too worried.

I'm trying not to worry too much about my Grandpa. His surgery is tomorrow. Radical Cystectomy. Ugh. My shift tomorrow is going to be less that fun with me feeling all scatterbrained. But once it's over I'm off of work for five blissful days and I am going HOME!

Mom and I are planning on redoing the den I think. It needs a serious coat of paint and we need to put down the tile floor. Plus, that is the room that Dad died in so it needs a face-lift to restore it to 'den' instead of 'depressing Dad room that no one goes into.' Mostly I just want to hang out with my Mom, I miss her. I think the fair is going on too, so maybe Jim and I will kidnap her and take her out to do something fun.

I'm going to go sleep. And NOT study first! Wheeeeee!

The hits keep coming

I think... I'm depressed.

I haven't left the house in two days. Which means I skipped the last two days of my summer class. I have no desire to do anything. I don't want to talk to anyone, do my schoolwork, shower, cook, clean, laugh, work, anything. My third and final exam in my summer class is tomorrow. I spent six hours watching Greys Anatomy yesterday and three hours today. I scan through pages and pages of FML or MLIA because the single paragraph is about all I can concentrate on.

Jim comes home and talks to me and it takes three "what?"s before I can process what he's saying.

This morning I had a bad dream. I can't remember most of what it was about, except that it's the first bad dream I didn't want to wake up from because my Dad was in it... there was a part of the dream where we were on a bus and then walking up my driveway. He held my hand. I missed class because I kept trying to get back into that dream. I'd sleep all day if I could have him hold my hand again.

My grandfather is having his bladder removed on Friday. I have to work but I'm going home on Saturday so I can stop by the hospital and be with him. Then I'm going to get to be home for a few days. I'm terrified of being home, home without my Dad. I'm terrified that my grandfather isn't going to survive his surgery, his cancer.

I feel like the plate of things to deal with or adapt to has grown to the size of a dinner table and it's stacked with more things than most people have to deal with in a decade, let alone less than a year. Our family just can't seem to catch a break.

Laid off my old job, unable to keep a job in my old field because the market was so bad, so I get certified in a new field. My fiancee at the time (who I love unconditionally) seemed totally incapable of making the step to move away from his parents and his comfort zone, so even though I'm 9 years younger I pick up my life and move to his hometown. I find a new job and start over. Jim and I get married, the highpoint in the past year, I didn't know a person could be so happy. Back to work after the wedding I go through the motions of married life. I don't get to see my family because I'm busy with work and with inlaws and being married. But overall it's a blissful six months, I apply for and get accepted to nursing school, I get to see my brother at Christmas. Then my grandfather gets sick, he starts peeing blood one night. They take him to the hospital and cant figure out what caused the bleeding but they do discover that he has a grapefruit sized abdominal aortic aneurysm. He survives that operation and then we discover the the bleeding is from bladder cancer. Chemo starts... life goes on. I don't see my family for my birthday or see my Dad for his birthday, things got in the way and we just never expected it would be our last chance. A couple weeks later Dad gets sick but we don't know how serious it is, it's just some stomach pain after all. Easter happens but I have to work that weekend so once again I don't get home. We're not religious after all, what does it matter? Then the axe falls. Dad's stomach ache is really cancer and it's inoperable and we only have two months. The world ends.

Seven weeks later Dad passes away.

A month or so after we find out that Grandpa's bladder cancer has gotten worse, not better, and that his only chance is a radical cystectomy (total bladder removal.) School starts in a month. Money is tiiiight and I just keep wondering "what else?" How much more can we be asked to survive? I just want to go back to sleep.

Wake me when it's over.

Naptime

Sonofabitch.

I've got to stop this. Got home from class, had lunch and then PASSED OUT. I had no intention of taking a nap and now half my afternoon is gone. Fuck. My last test is on Thursday and I need the time to study.

Grrrrrrumble

Off to work.