Confronting Mortality

My grandma is not well. She's been in and out of hospitals and rehab centers the past few weeks. Heart issues, lung issues, etc. Apparently, she has two tumor-looking items in her lungs, which at her age, are manifestly untreatable. Needless to say, the prognosis is not good. At least she remains in pretty good spirits, considering the circumstances.

I'm not one to be too emotional in private. I can probably count on one hand the times I've been genuinely angry, same goes for extremely sad, to the point of it being externally noticeable. I typically try to run on a pretty even keel. With that in mind, I'm certainly not going to make any sort of melodramatic appeal in the public format of this blog. But as you can imagine, it's shitty, especially since I have a pretty small family in the first place. I don't have any siblings, and neither does my mom. I have an aunt and an uncle on my dad's side, as well as two cousins. And when you take into account the fact that my grandma has always been more of a part of my nuclear family than my extended, once again, it's fairly sad.

But then again, she kind of seems okay with getting out of here. It's no way to spend life, cooped up inside, not being able to do the things you once did. Being reliant on others for basic things.

In another twist to my weekend, I ended up spending an hour and a half of my Saturday afternoon sitting with my dog at an emergency pet hospital. It turns out he has a herniated disc, so he got some drugs and has been put on a strict regimen of "bed rest." Now I'm not one to go overboard on dogs as some do. I've never viewed my dog as some sort of child that I have to take care of, rather, he's more of a friend that just sort of hangs out all the time. I don't carry pictures of him in my wallet, or dress him up in dog sweaters or any of that nonsense. But it was very disconcerting to hear him yelp and gingerly walk around on his hurting legs. When I took him to the vet, he had this look on his face like he felt bad he was making me take him to get looked at (law school is insanely busy right now).

Like I mentioned earlier, it's a small family, and whether you want to admit it or not, the dog is part of it. We've had him since I was 12, and as my dad likes to say, he's been the "constant" in the ever changing seas of life. Doesn't ask for much, save some food, walks, and attention. He seems to be feeling better, and the vet indicated he should be good to go in a week or so. At the time though, it was very disconcerting.

It doesn't help that suddenly, my assignments at school have gotten extremely long and extremely involved. Add the stress that necessarily accompanies the minutiae of daily life, and it's been quite the weekend. Everything could be worse though, I suppose.

On a bit of good news, the Twins signed Joe Crede to play third base. I think this was a wise move. I told my grandma this on Saturday, she agreed. She was quite excited to watch a replay of Scott Baker's near perfect game on Saturday afternoon. See the previous post, add that story to it. Sometimes, an idiotic ballgame is just what you need.