1. My dad, although he's making another attempt at sobriety, appears to be in the early stages of Alzheimer's, and seems to need a lot of help managing stuff.
2. My sister, who could help with this, is at the moment indisposed, from a brain bleed she suffered in May. It resolved itself, but further investigation revealed a weak spot (aneurysm) on another vessel, a much larger one than the one which apparently burst in May. She would have had surgery to repair it in May, but was given an anti-seizure med (Dilantin, I think) although she had not had a seizure. She ended up developing a severe (potentially fatal, but it was caught in time) reaction to the drug. A syndrome called Stevens-Johnson syndrome. Scary stuff if you google it. So, she is recovering from that; meanwhile, her docs have been saying week after week that they'll have a surgery date asap. As of yesterday they still didn't have one (that was to be the day when they WOULD establish one) so I called them and raised hell, invoking not only her stress but the stress on the family from watching her go through this, the fear of losing her, and the added emotional burdens of having had a very tragic loss in our family recently, to say nothing of Zoe's (my sister) medical-leave issues with work. Apparently it got through to them, so now a date is set. My MOM even called and thanked me. Very unusual.
3. Jon noticed something on Saturday which scared the shit out of him, thinking it might be prostate cancer (his dad had a bout with it about 10 years ago, but recovered completely and more or less unscathed). So we had a hideously bad night and morning (last night and this morning) until he called the urologist he'd seen in MI, who reassured him that what he noticed was very common (we didn't know this) and very unlikely to be even slightly related to prostate issues. Since he has had no other symptoms whatsoever, and having researched this fairly exhaustively today, it seems that all will probably be well. He has an appointment tomorrow just to rule anything else out. The thought of losing him too absolutely destroyed me, not to mention his fears.
4. However, Emily has taken matters into her own hands and in a matter of 72 hours, has gone from being in diapers all the time to completely self-reliantly potty trained (except for a diaper at night, mostly because of my own paranoia and laziness -- I don't want to wake up at 3 a.m. to change sheets). It has been almost surreal. Items 1-4 in this list have been occurring more or less simultaneously, so my neurons are stretched to their limits trying to sort it all out.
5. Meanwhile, since early June, we have been waiting for someone -- anyone -- to come out and fix our attic fan, which shorted out on us in the middle of one night and probably would have caused a fire and killed us if Jon wasn't such a light sleeper. So, now we have a dead attic fan with no switch (that's what malfunctioned) which may or may not be still connected to the circuit, and so we have had to shut off that circuit, which supplies power to Emily's room and the guest room, and rig up extension cords (which are arranged as safely as we can manage, although she understands not to play with any electrical items and isn't interested anyway). I honestly do not know what to do to get someone out here. We have a home warranty so have been trying to arrange something through them -- that way we only pay a $95 deductible instead of however many hundreds (thousands?) it might otherwise cost. We had great luck this winter when our furnace motor blew -- that got taken care of within 24 hours -- so this is even more frustrating.
Now that I've bored what few readers I have (or want) into a persistent vegetative state I realize this is pretty parochial -- limited only to personal stuff, mostly a catalogue of disease symptoms, home maintenance problems, and toileting issues, but I think the subtitle of this blog ("Navel-gazing, self-pity, minutiae") is a sufficient disclaimer. There are far more outwardly-focused and witty blogs out there -- two of them are linked here, the rest can be found by randomly scrolling through other blogs using the "Next Blog" button at the top of the page. Not that I have gotten any complaints, but it is wise to cover one's ass and stick boilerplate like this in every so often.
Last night, before all the shit hit the fan medically (with Jon and Zoe), I went to the neighborhood Garden Club party. It was fairly nice -- the woman who lives across the street from me, who I know from a mothers' organization we both belong to, and who is herself reasonably interesting and cool (for Youngstown), went with me, and we sat and talked to each other most of the time, and chatted with a few others. It was the typical card-tables with centerpieces scattered through the lawn, complete with tons of foofy desserts, appetizers, a margarita ball and several bottles of wine (they came in handy). It was just the most middle-class, suburban-matron thing I think I have ever done in my life.
Of course, I know absolutely NOTHING about gardening or anything that grows except for vegetables, fruits and herbs, and that's only because I'm a foodie and love to cook. If I actually had to grow my own stuff I'd be lost. I joined it mainly to meet some of the people in the neighborhood.
This town is not what you'd call tiny; it's on the small side (80K total, something like that) but it's one of those places where people have been for generations; they all have large families, they all went to school with each other, and it seems to be beyond the understanding of many of them that there are actually people who are NOT as intimately familiar with this place as they are. I ask for directions somewhere in the neighborhood and get in response, "Well, it's the house that's 2 doors down from ________ and kitty corner from ________, no wait, they moved, that's the ________'s instead. You can't miss it." The idea that street names and numbers might be more effective and useful does not cross their minds.
Still, this particular neighborhood we live in is quite pleasant. There is almost no racial or ethnic diversity -- everybody is white and most are Italian, except for myself (white but non-Italian) and Jon (multicolored and non-Italian), but you can't have everything.
For the most part everyone has been nice, and will at least nod and wave when passing on the street (people like to walk around here at night), and will sometimes come and introduce themselves (on the pretext of talking with Emily, who loves to chat up anyone and everyone).
Have managed to get myself to the Y to work out the last four days out of five, too. I feel physically a lot better. Mentally I feel like my brain has turned into a runny milkshake, but at least I have more energy.
I'm starting to put myself to sleep, so mercifully this entry is at an end.
