deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths…

Oh, where to start.

My poor father is back in the hospital. This is not as bad as it sounds – he went for his six weeks – five weeks?? whatever it’s been – checkup yesterday, and they discovered his heart is out of rhythem again. So they’re worried that this will make him develop bloodclots, and they slapped him back in the hospital so they can give him bloodthinners and figure out what to do. This is the VA, so they’ll be figuring for some time, I imagine. My brother says they will probably just give him a pacemaker, which is no big deal in these technologically advanced days, and that way he won’t have to take medication for it. But who KNOWS how long they’ll keep him there.

I am sorry to say that my reaction to this has been mostly along the line of WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Once I determined that he’s okay and it’s nothing to be freaking out about, at least. My reaction is that I WANT EVERYONE OUT OF THE FUCKING HOSPITALS AND DONE WITH THE FUCKING MEDICAL PROBLEMS AND HEALTHY AND BACK TO FUCKING NORMAL.

Yes, that’s my reaction.

The VA doesn’t have to deal with insurance companies, so they’re never in a hurry to boot people out. Which of course is GOOD if they need to BE there. And of course I don’t want him out and about when he ought not to be. I just know how they are and somebody has to stay with my mom and I know my brother and his wife are at their wits end because they’ve been taking them every single meal for all these weeks and now one of them will have to stay with her again and I’m sure they’d REALLY like some relief this weekend if he doesn’t get out.

Goddammit. We’ve got reservations in Helen Georgia for Saturday and Sunday night, because it’s our anniversary (yesterday was) and goddammit, I want to GO SOMEWHERE THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY FAMILY, BAKER B’S FAMILY, ASHEVILLE, MORGANTON, OR ATLANTA. I want a vacation. WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

We actually ARE going down tomorrow and spending the night there. We’d already planned that. I’ve been down every single weekend, and I thought if we’d just go this one last Friday night then we’d be able to cut down on the weekly trips. And it’s on the way so we’d already planned to stop by and spend Friday night, then go on to Helen Saturday. And we probably still CAN, I may be overreacting. Daddy may be back home by then, and it’s not like my brother doesn’t live right beside them.

I think I’ve just got this major guilt thing going on because they’ve had to do so much to help our parents out, and I’m not able to because I’m an hour and a half away. I’ve come down on the weekends, and I took quite a bit of time off during the actual operation and aftermath, but I’ve not been cooking every meal (which they really need to be weaning them off of – Daddy can cook, and he can HELP Mama if she can’t remember what she’s doing long enough to fix a sandwich, which seems to be the case) and I can’t spend every night there while Daddy’s back in the hospital. And besides that, my brother owes them!! Daddy’s just spent three YEARS helping him build their house.

Incidentally, my brother has not said one word to me to make me feel guilty, other than mentioning that he hoped we’d be able to come down on the weekends for awhile when this first happened.

And I think a lot of my guilt is also because I don’t want to do what they’re doing. I’d do it if I HAD to, but I really don’t WANT to spend weeks making every meal and spending untold nights there. I’d LOSE MY MIND. So I guess I feel bad because I’m getting out of something that, if I couldn’t get out of it, would make me completely and totally lose my fucking mind.

Does this make any sense at all? I seriously doubt it. Well, we’ll go on down tomorrow and see what’s going on. We have to cancel our reservations 24 hours in advance so that may be our excuse – I guess we could at least go to Helen Saturday night and come back to Asheville Sunday. It’s only a couple of hours. We both took Monday off. I told Baker B that I’ll go BACK if I have to next week. Or I guess he could just leave me there. But…. WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH.

SO, in summary, I feel like a big whiney selfish baby.

And I’m by myself at work today because K is sick AGAIN – she missed two days last week. It really really really sucks being here by myself because the phone rings nonstop and people come in nonstop and this way I have double the calls and visits and I don’t know where the hell her student worker is, who I THOUGHT was supposed to be in this afternoon. (That’s why I’m doing this – I can’t concentrate on my actual WORK.) I know K can’t help being sick and I’m not blaming her of course, but I’m blaming this stupid office. One of the more unpleasant professors called first thing this morning about changing Second Academic Concentrations, which is something K has to do and I have NO clue about. So the professor gets all snippy with me, saying, “You mean YOU can’t do that??? Nobody but K can do that????You REALLY need to have somebody there who can do what K does when she’s out!” Not in a sympathetic tone, but in a “god you guys are PATHETIC and it’s ALL your fault!” tone. She’s really obnoxious. I also ran into her as I was unlocking our door (and thinking “oh SHIT” because if K isn’t here before I am, it’s a real good bet she’s not coming in) and Prof. Bitchy wants to know if I can let a student into the computer lab and why CAN’T I let a student in the computer lab and why do I not have keys for the computer lab and yes, she did send the student to the person who actually KEEPS the keys but she’s in a meeting so why don’t I have keys even though it’s nothing to do with my job and I have no reason to have keys and the keykeeper isn’t even in our office, but I ought to have keys anyhow!!!!

Idiot.

Well. Maybe I should stop whining and work on some of the fifty thousand student teaching applications I have to print out as they’re due tomorrow and everyone is turning them in. WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!