It feels like I should check in here. Times are tough right now and I know some people may be wondering about us after the big earthquake that hit Eureka yesterday. I was answering a friend's email and the (lazy) thought struck me to copy and paste it as an update here. Frankly, I just don't have it in me to type it all more than once. :-/
The last Big One we had was Christmas of 94. I was visiting down here in the valley, hadn't got my house up there yet, when I got the phone call at 7am from Scott the maintenance man (at the nursing home I was running). Well, I missed this one, too. But John has called with the blow-by-blow accounts over the last day. Says he's filled a recycling dumpster half full of glass from throughout the house :-( He says I'll probably be walking through the house for the next year saying, "Hey, where'd such and such go?" I think I'm glad I missed it. And after all, it's just 'stuff'. We can always buy more, right? Today he thought to open the front door (our garage is in back of the house) and the front step that we so proudly tiled 10 years ago was thrashed. Dangit.
Sadly, the reason I wasn't there, is that I'm in Visalia dealing with tragic stuff. My stepsister who survived bone cancer 10 years ago surprised us all and got diagnosed with lung cancer a few weeks ago (October..they at first thought she had pneumonia but couldn't clear it up) and then brain cancer was discovered in late November. God only knows where else it may have been. She had surgery to remove one of three (known) tumors in her brain on dec 15. The other two were too risky to get to so they were going to do radiation and chemo. New Years eve night one of the remaining tumors 'exploded' and she was all but gone. My stepmom, MaryAnn, had to leave my completely disabled father alone here (stressful enough) to run back down to LA and be by Cindy's side on new years day, along with Cindy's 11 & 13 year old boys and my stepbrother Keven. They unplugged the ventilator on the evening of the first and I got a text msg the following morning at 4:15 that she had passed. Yesterday we had the memorial here in Tulare Co and tomorrow they are burying her ashes. Meanwhile, my father got hospitalized last Thursday (the day after I got here) for probably the 8th time in a year...this time with pneumonia. He rarely leaves his chair...nowadays he doesn't even bother turning off the oxygen to have a cigarette. Crazy. My experience in the nursing homes, watching the back and forth trips from hospital to hospital eventually be what kills them, leaves me AMAZED that he is still 'hanging in there'. For what, I don't know. So frail and fragile and skinny and scared. It's horrible watching one's Dad end up like this. As I walk from the parking lot, through the halls, up the elevator, past the nurses station and into his shabby and antiquated hospital room, I remember with increasing anger what I've always believed; that we would NOT drag out the inevitable end if a LOT of people weren't making a LOT of money by keeping the old and frail alive. Maybe that's the grain of truth to Sarah Palin's accusation of Death Squads in the case of socialized medicine. If money was the deciding factor then I think of course it would be questioned how much more to sink into patients such as this. My father has no quality of life. So what the hell is the point?
I'm trying to be calm and take things one at a time but I have to say we are off to a 'shaky' start for 2010 (pardon the pun). I have so many blessings to count. I didn't lose my house or my family up there. I'm not Maryann down here having to deal with the tragic loss of a 46 year old daughter while knowing I don't have the strength to put my older husband in a care facility, nor do I really have the strength to care for him at home. I don't know how she's going to do it. I hesitate to leave here for fear I'll have to turn right around and drive the 500 miles right back, but if that's what it is then that's what it is. I have promised not to leave til Dad leaves the hospital one way or the other.
In my spare time here I'm teaching my mom how to get back on ebay, which is really the easy part these days. The harder part is teaching her to edit and upload her photos, etc. before we even GET to the listing bit :-) Luckily she's a good student, so I best sign off now and get back to that.
Love you. Take care. Talk soon.
jen