I can't believe how dreadful the past few weeks have been. Pyewacket passed on 02/17, after which I got sick for two days just from the stress and upset.
I got my digestive tract sorted out just in time to accompany my mom to her hand surgery the following week... after which, I started running a fever that maxed out at 100.5. That got me sent to get a COVID test, the PCR test where they swab farther back than you ever thought a Q-tip could be inserted. That tested negative, but it still took a couple days to rebound. (This was my first time with Tamiflu, and it rocked!)
I thought I was going to be able to just lounge on Sunday of that weekend, just to recuperate well enough to return to work on Monday. Nope. Unfortunately, the next round of challenges was about to begin. My poor Mom fell and broke her hip. She wound up admitted to Methodist, having surgery a few days later, and then going to the Watermark for inpatient rehab. The good news is that all her recuperation from that is going as it should. BUT! (Isn't there always a BUT?) they also found a large growth on her pituitary gland. Large, like over an inch in size, on a gland that should be the size of a pea.
While all this was going on, a couple days before she was to be discharged, my Uncle Tony called. My cousin Anthony was back in the hospital, where he has been repeatedly since last June. I would estimate he was hospitalized more than he was at home since Father's Day. It has been that bad. But this time, it was different. Docs had found evidence that his organs were starting to shut down. He was not likely to make it. I had to call the Watermark and break my mother's heart by telling her this news. But that's better than having my uncle have to say it to her. The words were almost physically painful to utter. It's just not right that someone only 50 years old would have been put through such suffering his entire life by a rebellious body. This world is not fair, period.
The Saturday after Mom came home, Uncle Tony called again. (We had left some messages for him, but I think he was just swamped with all that was going on.) Anthony passed away in the wee hours of Saturday morning. I can't even see straight for the grief, if I dwell on it too long. Mind you, after the nine circles of hell that his body put him through, it's not like I would wish him back into that suffering body just for my sake. But I certainly wish his soul had been installed into a body that did not hurt, damage itself, create crises requiring emergency surgery, and rebel at every possible opportunity. He had more surgeries in this past year than most folks have had in a lifetime. It most assuredly is not fair. I know this world is not fair, but sometimes I reserve the right to rail against the worst of the unfairness. This is like that.
His funeral is Friday. Mom can't manage a car ride that long, so soon after her surgery, and I don't blame her. She is upset that she can't go, but I know Uncle Tony of all people will understand.
Next up: we find out when my mother's pituitary surgery is. We already saw the neurosurgeon this week (good appointment) and she had a baseline vision test so they can compare it to her vision post-surgery (not-so-good appointment).
2022 can go jump in a lake. All it had to do, to be welcomed as a hero, would have been to be a better year than its two immediate predecessors. It is, so far, failing spectacularly at meeting even that simple requirement.
Stay Tuned. There is more to come. I hope it's not more of what we have just been through.
