"We Use To Wait" by Arcade Fire

Monday: I thought I had a really great system on here with writing updates on my ipad and then pasting them into IAM and then into the blogging ap so that it posts onto here. It doesn’t help when I get lazy though.

The whole ordeal with my father in the hospital was a huge mess. He is home now but while he was there it was a disaster. Due to him needing ot have his stomach drained of any of the toxic fluid from his appendix he wasn’t aloud to eat nor get any of his meds. I never thought my father was someone that needed his meds to keep him from having major psychotic episodes, but yeah I think he does need them now. He was seeing things that weren’t there and most of the time it was difficult to know what was fact or fiction. When he moved out of icu the care he received from the nurses sucked. In icu they pretty much watch everything you do and there is a nurse to every 4 patients. On a regular floor I think there are 2 nurses per floor. So the ratio is different and so is the care. One day in particular is a great example of it too, my father sat in his own shit for hours. A pile of towels and bed sheets were in the corner covered and so was he. No one bothered to come and clean him. My mother and I did the best we could and changed his hospital gown and tried to not disturb his iv. His doctors were making rounds, one of them in particular needed someone to hold him down and have someone kick him in the testicles until he lost consciousness and wasn’t able to have children. His over all attitude was shit and he acted like he didn’t want to be there and that he was God. One of the doctors with him asked my father if he still had diarrhea, which was not something new. He had it from when he first went into the hospital so I don’t know why they didn’t know this. When we pointed to the pile in the corner that doctor and the others just had an “oh” reaction. He was moved from that room shortly after and put into a room alone to prevent him from contaminating anyone with the “bug” he had. So when my mother and I went to visit him and found out we needed to wear this heavy protective gear we left. Manly due to our compromised immune systems, we didn’t really want to get anything my father had. My father was then finally being released on father’s day, we made sure to make the dinner we had that night special.

I think that the stress of everything had been getting to me. The Thursday, a few days before my father’s release, I started to have pain in my lower back which was upsetting. I have been doing exercise but this has stopped me since it isn’t really the most comfortable feeling. To make things worse the Monday after my father’s release something happened. It was about 6am and I was getting ready for bed. My mother just got up and saw me closing the computer and she went back to sleep. As my computer turned off I felt an overwhelming waves of nausea. I was going to get up to run to the bathroom but as it intensified it passed and I started to feel really strange. I grabbed my blood machine and tested at the kitchen table. I felt silly to call for my parents but I felt that if I didn’t now I would regret it and so I did. I said I needed help and I didn’t feel well and I didn’t know what was wrong. My father came into the kitchen to see what was wrong with my mother trailing behind, by the time he got there I was already falling to the floor. All I remember was testing my blood and the machine saying 9,999. I landed on the side of my face as I crashed to the ground. My mother asked me what happened and I told her I needed to do my blood. I felt like I was under water I couldn’t really move. She came back with a cold compress to put on my face, and after testing my blood and seeing it was only 97 and not this insane number I didn’t know what happened. I had some juice and felt better and went to sleep. I went to the doctor on Tuesday to get yelled because whenever I go see Dr. Hyman my blood sugar has to be insane. So I got the disappointed look from him. One thing I am happy about is he can’t contact my endocrinologist which is something he did years ago when I was younger, and did something stupid. I had eaten candy before I went to see him and he called my endo and told him which I heard about the next time I went. Its rather annoying, and pisses me off about him that he still holds that against me. When I told him that I collapsed in the kitchen he asked why I didn’t think I needed to to the ER at that point. I just looked at him and said, I didn’t pass out I just collapsed. He said the pain in my back was a muscle spasm and said that if the pain in my back wasn’t gone by that Friday I should come back and get an x-ray which I didn’t do.

The pain is going away, and I have been using a heating pad on my back whenever I can. I have go to go sleep soon since I have a research meeting tomorrow. The professor had been emailing me the whole time while all of this drama had been going on with my father and myself. I only told him about what was going on with my father. I felt that he maybe might have read to much into things and thought that maybe I was just saying these things to get out of doing work since I didn’t get the summer internship position to work with him. That is how I see it though and I didn’t want him to think that. I was also shocked that he contacted me to ask me how things were going since he tends to take on more of the role of the observer and is detached. Selma had been talking to me through texts and it looks like the survey was changed from what her and I worked on. I took the survey tonight since he sent it out and its way to long. Also some of the wording seems like someone from the 1920s came and decided to write some questions. I don’t want to be overly critical and not be taken seriously if I make comments like that but that is how I feel. I feel like someone was trying to hard to impress and did not do a very good job at it. More than likely, it was Sharleen…

"Savior" by 30 Seconds to Mars

Monday: The smell of camphor ignites my room. I feel it’s so strong it would wake the dead. It needs to kill those closet beetles in my room so I can go back to existing in there. I have kept the door closed with the fan on, or off, depending on how intense the smell is in my room. It is currently at the point where I start sneezing when I walk in so I think its time to clean up.

I visited my father in the afternoon, mentioning what we have been doing with my room. He was in a grumpy miserable mood worse than yesterday. It makes me feel like we shouldn’t stay long, but our visit today was our longest. Time escaped us but so much was going on. He wasn’t speaking clearly and he seemed to be suffering a delirium. Usually, when this happens there is a kidney infection as we learned in the past. This time they said there isn’t anything there in his kidneys. So we sat and spoke with him until the desi nurse came in, and we requested to speak with the doctor. Shortly after a young woman entered with long brown hair. She looked as if she should be on some new hit show more than operating on people. She explained what was going on with my father. He isn’t allowed to eat so they can see why his stomach is distended. They inserted a tube down his nose into his stomach to drain fluids, but he pulled it out which wasn’t good. So they are watching him over night to see what is the cause of the bloat. We discussed the random things my father was saying; how he saw flies, faces on the faucet, and the drummer playing outside. The doctor explained that since he isn’t home that is the cause of that, but I don’t know how true that is. He also wasn’t happy with us talking about him with him there, we should have left but didn’t think of it. As time passed, he started to make less sense. It wasn’t complete nonsense but him talking about the computer terminal saying “I don’t know how they can call this art” made us wonder what’s going on. And so it was time to leave and he seemed to not be happy about it, but as mean as this might sound only as much we can do there. Especially with him talking that way.

My mother and I went to CVS, but weren’t there long. We came home to find my father calling and asking my mother where we were. He told her how that young doctor gave my father water, which he was dying for. While he drank it she pushed the tube down his nose and he said she wasn’t gentle doing so. They spoke for a while and then my mother told him the cats were in the room. She put him on speaker phone and he called their names. They came over and Teddy was smelling the phone. My mother told him they came and apparently it was to much for him. He began to sob on the phone and hung up. My mother assured him everything is alright and he will be home soon, but no one was on the other end to hear what she had to say.

I started to clean my room slowly vacuuming up the crystals to ward off the beetles. After I did that I started to clean up the room. Apparently it is worse than I expected. A lot of the things under my bed have their shed exoskeletons on them and some cloth items have them actually on them feasting on the threads. I threw all of that away. The fact they got inside my camera bag scares me. So I need to do a more intense cleaning which is for tomorrow. It depressed me to much knowing what is going on there. I think I need to empty my dresser, wash everything, and put moth balls in. I am going to smell like an old lady…

"Soldier On" by The Temper Trap

Saturday: I think I get horribly lazy when it comes to updating this, or I just get distracted by other things. My summer is not really going how I planned, I know I am still surprised I graduated. Okay, that sounds horrible. I knew I was going to graduate, I just didn’t know it was going to be now. I expected my school to put up more of a fight since they have in the past. They have kept me there longer than I originally planned. The second degree was going to be quick and it definitely was not. What is funny, is that I remember reapplying and going back as if it were yesterday. I remember the drama I went through, and how horrible I felt. Then again the reason why I feel this way is because Bessy is going through the same thing I did. So I am pretty much reliving this through her. I also am advising her in what to do since this is something that not many students do at my school, or not many advertise that they have done. She is a mess over this and I am trying to advise her the best I can in what to exactly do so that she doesn’t feel so overwhelmed. I remember feeling that way among other things. I hated that I didn’t take things as seriously as I should, that I didn’t drop classes that were dragging me down, and that I didn’t make friends with people in the classes to help me with picking courses. The friends I made were in electives, which didn’t help me as much. But, now that I am finished I really need to figure out what I am going to do with myself. All I am hearing from friends is “so what are you going to do in the fall?” Honestly I am not sure. If things don’t fall into place with me working at my high school, I’ll have to find something to do job wise. Sadly I won’t be working at my college like I have been unless it’s a design position for a professor. That is pretty much it. Other than that I was planning on taking the gre and a prep class so I can apply for the spring’s grad program. Whenever I think of grad school now, I have the conversation I had with Dr. Murray stuck in my head. She is friend with one of the graduate admissions people, I believe he is the one in charge. Dr. Lanzone told me this so I mentioned it to her and she told me how her and Bill always talk about graduate admissions. She told me he has a lot of pressure put on him in regards to changing the requirements for the program. How the bar needs to be raised and he feels it is high enough. If someone else gets his job they are going to make it so you are required to walk on fire and shit gold bricks at the same time. If that is the case, I sadly, cannot do either of those things. Dr. Murray pointed out that I should take a prep class, but the way she said it, made me feel that I am stupid and that I am doing something I can’t do. Maybe it’s just me, or maybe I just feel guilty cause my book bag attacked her when I was outside of the office, ensnaring her leg forcing her to bust her ass.

All I know, is that this week has really been stressful, enough to give me a full head of gray/white hair. I discussed it with Jessica tonight over dinner, telling her how my father hadn’t been feeling well starting on Tuesday. He went out for a walk to return being in pain in his lower abdomen. At one point he was trying to throw up, but that didn’t last very long. He said the pain left him the next day but it returned shortly after that. My mother and I honestly did not know what it could be and we had various ideas going through our heads. All we knew was that he needed to go to the hospital asap. Well, he put up a fight alright with that and refused to go even thought he pain became exponentially worse. Finally he agreed to go Thursday night on Friday. My mother walked him to the car with me trailing behind locking up. One of our neighbors which we cannot stand for various reasons was out and watching us like a hawk. I told my mother this later on and she said that she will probably contact my aunt and tell her what’s going on since my cousin’s wedding was this weekend eh. (My family was invited, but this doesn’t mean we were going. My mother is still not really a big fan of my aunt due to all the drama with the house. I didn’t feel comfortable going because of that tension and how my aunt would act with me there. Not negative but just up my ass and being a pain. Also my mother wasn’t to happy that my other aunt and cousins were going as well and hiding it from my mother by just not mentioning it and being avoidant. When my cousin and mother spoke my mother said my father wasn’t feeling well, which was when he was dealing with all the issues with his kidneys. She said that my father needed to go for tests and such the week before the wedding and we didn’t know if we could go. My mother didn’t know this was going to happen with my father though…) We waited in the ER for my father to be taken in. He was diagnosed with an appendicitis but we didn’t know how serious it was until later on that day. When we left the veterans hospital we were told he was going to be operated on Saturday. That changed though, by the time we got home he called me to tell me that he was going to be operated on that night. A doctor called at night telling my mother she needed to come to the hospital now, not that anything happened. He just said that we should be and be there for when my father comes out of surgery. My mother asked if she could come in half an hour but the doctor started to get very testy and yell telling my mother that she needed to leave now. So we did, and we also waited because they were not finished when we got there. We took our time too.

When the surgeon came and met us in the waiting room he told us that his appendix proliferated. He also added that if my father didn’t come in today to get it removed he would be dead Saturday. We went upstairs to wait for him to come out of the operating room. We waited about 45 minutes before he was even wheeled up there and then he still wasn’t ready to see us, but my mother wanted to go since we were already waiting. We stopped in, but he was out of it. He told us to come tomorrow well through a series of blinks and nods we pretty much figured we would come tomorrow.

Today when we visited him he had a nurse keeping watch over him which sounded exactly like my mother’s friend Arlene. To make things funnier she is also a QVC junkie, just like my mother’s friend. I think it was her long lost sister. Anyway, my father was breathing erratically, which the nurse warned him about. He needs to stop doing that other wise he will get pneumonia and be there long. He also needs to move around so fluid doesn’t collect for the same reason. I have to say that in my 27 years of existence, I have not seen my parents hold hands ever that changed today. My father was in distress and breathing as if he had run a marathon. He extended his hand for my mother’s and she gave it to him. I had to hold back from getting emotional especially after hearing that he could be there long for pneumonia. I am not close with my father, and he is a pain in my ass, but I realize I only have one and that this is something that wasn’t serious that turned serious due to him not going to the hospital sooner. He relaxed after he was given morphine and also ate. I don’t know how long we stayed but he told us we could go so we could see him tomorrow. From the information we got finally as we were leaving, it looked like his appendix ruptured when he first began to have pain. I guess he didn’t realize how serious it was, though I have heard that the pain from a ruptured appendix is unbearable. I don’t know how he slept with that…