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I'm not sure what the problem is this morning but I've been sneezing non-stop. Eugh.

So, here's the deal. Yesterday afternoon my mom called me to tell me that my grandmother had fallen while she was downtown. Now, this is hazardous for any elderly person but my grandmother had hip-replacement surgery about two years ago. My mom told me that they were taking her to the hospital to get checked out and to make sure that her hip hadn't done anything foolish. I wasn't really worried since it didn't sound like a big deal. A few hours later I called West Penn Hospital after getting irritated that I hadn't been updated. I talked to my grandfather who told me that my grandmother had broken her kneecap and her elbow. Owwwwwwwww! Poor thing. She has to wait until Monday to see her regular (orthopedic?) doctor to find out if she has to have surgery on her knee or not. They gave her a prescription for Percocet but she refuses to take them for some inexplicable reason. I told her to get the pills and then just give them to me. I'll make sure that they don't go to waste…or I'll get entrepreneurial and sell them. I had Percocet after getting my wisdom teeth removed and after my C-section. They were very nice indeed.
So now my mom, who seems to be less and less able to deal with any kind of stress as she gets older, has been frantic since yesterday. When she came home last night she was extremely teary and short with me. I asked her if she was okay and she snapped, “Yes, I'm FINE! It's just very upSETTING when someone you LOVE is HURT, oKAY?” Okaaay. So I asked her to remove my head from her jaws and told her that my grandmother will be just fine. She just sort of glared at me and stomped off to bed. She's always trying to pull this guilt trip on me and accuse me of not caring about my family. It's such bullshit and it's very hurtful. When the baby was sick a few weeks ago my mom seemed to think it would be best if we all completely freaked out and moved into Children's Hospital and hold a prayer vigil and maybe become nuns, you know, just for good measure. That was really too much. I found it increasingly difficult to take care of my son and to fend off my mother who was apparently trying to set a world record for nervous breakdowns in a 72-hour period. She kept saying that I wasn't worried enough which was extremely offensive. I'm no doctor, but I read up on childhood illnesses a lot. Yes, he was quite sick with strep and the intestinal virus but I knew that he just needed care and rest and that he would be fine. Lo and behold, he was. Afterward my mom kept saying, “Wow, you really held it together. You were so calm and focused on making him better.” Yes, no thanks to you, fruitcake. Now do me a favor and throw this shirt in the laundry. It has puke all over it.
Sigh.
Anyway, I'm kind of getting away from the issue at hand. My grandmother is going to be fine. I know this but no one else seems to realize it. And I know this is going to sound selfish but I'm just going to go ahead and mention it since this is my journal. I'm irritated with my grandmother for getting injured when I have to write this article this weekend. Okay, there, I said it. I am, indeed, the worst granddaughter ever to walk the Earth. I just can't help but notice that my family and I have the worst luck as far as the scheduling of crises goes. During college my finals/midterms/other important work always seemed to coincide with a death or other important family event. I can't remember how many times I would stumble home after a 10-hour wake and slur, “Hooo-kay, let's write a Philosophy paper! It's due in eight hours….snore….” Now it seems that that pattern is going to continue for many years.

So…last night, after my mom let me have my head back, I was watching some crap on the Discovery Health Channel about plastic surgery or something. (ick) Around 12 the phone rang. I have to admit that one of my first paranoid thoughts was that it was my grandfather calling to say, “She fell again,” or “Her leg just went ahead and fell off. Meet us at the hospital in five minutes.” But instead it was telling me that he was going to come pick me up and bring me to Ray's. It was very nice of him but I was so tired and the thought of being at a bar was just really not appealing, even if Ed Um was going to be playing. I thanked him and we hung up but instead of going to bed like I said I was I, predictably, came down here and wrote a little bit. I've still only got one paragraph done but it's something. I think I'm just going to have to confine myself tonight and tomorrow during the day until I get it more or less finished. Ergh. I need an office, dammit!
Well, I'm starting to sweat and I think my son has pooped. He's also imitating a car alarm at the moment so I'm going to remove him from the situation before he starts acting even stranger.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2003 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.