Category Archives: Family

Life in our little family has revolved around celebrations in recent weeks. Amongst the highlights:

• Chanukah
• Sampson’s birthday
• Our fifth wedding anniversary
• The beginning of 2012

That’s a lot of holidays and personal milestones squeezed into a tiny span of calendar space. When you factor in the travel (by car, battling horrendous traffic, with two vocally displeased and/or carsick felines in the back seat, I might add) to see relatives on both sides of the family during Sampson’s ten days of block leave, it makes for a late December/early January period that isn’t big on restfulness.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that my body decided to enforce some downtime by way of a sneezy, eye-watery cold over the weekend. Sampson and I hardly ever make big plans for New Year’s Eve, as we’d just as soon avoid the Tipsy Timmies and Soused Sallies who think the holiday gives them +1 in drunk driving skills, so we had already planned to ring in 2012 in the comfort of our own home. Plus, we make far superior cocktails for a far more reasonable price than we could find at any swanky joint.

Alas, the rate at which I was going through tissues and my general malaise left me unfit for cocktails on the 31st. Passing out on the couch in front of the Twilight Zone marathon and having Sampson wake me up just in time to see the ball drop wasn’t exactly the romantic evening in I’d envisioned, but I can’t complain. My husband and I stepped into this new year together, safe and whole. If things had turned out just a hair’s-breadth differently on one day in 2011, we might not have been able to say that.

In the very fact that Sampson and I could celebrate the arrival of a new year, I believe there is an implied obligation for us to be mindful of our blessings. Not easy. I will almost certainly lose sight of the important stuff at times (especially in the face of military frustrations; the Navy has a way of making trivialities explode into seeming significance). All I can do is strive to let myself hear the quiet, joyful truths of the good things in my life, whatever 2012 may bring.

Grandmother: Out of the ICU! That’s good news, as the environment was taking a mental toll on her. Moving to a regular hospital room might be a baby step on the recovery from a triple bypass, but it’s one in the right direction.

Grandfather: Rehydrated, home from the hospital and resting until he’s readmitted for Wednesday’s surgery. They will be removing the tumor, along with about eight inches of the surrounding colon. It is definitely cancer, but we won’t know what stage it is in until they get in there and assess the lymph nodes. We’re all praying that this surgery is sufficient and that he doesn’t have to undergo chemotherapy.

Me: I have a cold. Big whoop, right? I feel pretty puny, and the timing is not at all convenient, but a sore throat is of no consequence in the grand scheme of things. I can even see a positive side, such as the truly bizarre dreams I tend to have when I’m not sleeping well. In one, I was drinking a pepper-infused beer that, lo and behold, made my dream-self’s throat hurt. In another, I was knitting a mermaid costume so I could be launched into the sky to save my friends by beating a video game. Interpret that.

So, that’s what’s going on. If you need me, I’ll be on the couch trying to determine if 9:30 in the morning is too early for a medicinal hot toddy.

This has been a hell of a week. Last weekend, Grandma (my mom’s mother) wound up in the hospital with chest pains. They gave her some medicine and sent her home, only to have her back in the emergency room a the next day about a hair’s breadth from a heart attack. Despite her strong desire to avoid surgery, there was no way the doctors could release her in the condition she was in, so she underwent a triple bypass on Tuesday.

The thing that scared me the most about the whole situation was that it was enough to get my flying-phobic mother on an airplane so she could be there with Grandma and my aunts and uncles. My mom despises flying and avoids it as much as she possible can. Funny that she has a volunteer SAR aircrew daughter and a Naval Aviator son-in-law, huh? It wasn’t until Mom told me that she was buying a plane ticket to get to Texas as quickly as possible that the situation and its implications began to sink in for me.

The good (excellent, wonderful, delightful) news is that Grandma came through the surgery very well and is on the road to a smooth recovery. I got the news that the surgery was a success in the middle of a dinner out with the other squadron wives. Relief!

That was Tuesday. Bright and early Wednesday morning, my dad got into town for a long-awaited visit, after which the kitties and I were to accompany him back up to DC for a family visit. We had a fun day that included a trip to the farmer’s market, a sushi lunch, doing some yardwork, and grilling a delicious dinner. Yesterday was great, except for the call we got from my uncle that recent test results had determined that my grandfather (Dad’s father) has a tumor in his colon. Surgery was scheduled for next Wednesday. I felt like I’d been sucker-punched.

We decided pretty much immediately that with everything going on, it would be a lousy time for me to come up and visit, but Dad was going to stay as planned with me ’til Saturday. Then this morning we got a frantic call from my aunt, saying that my grandfather was in the hospital with severe nausea and dehydration. My dad left immediately thereafter to get back home and be there for his mom and dad.

So, I’m alone here with the kitties and feeling more than a little off-balance. My emotions are being yanked in all different directions: north to my grandfather, southwest to my grandmother, and a long way east to my husband, whose deployment cannot end soon enough. I’m drained.

I apologize for the less-than-cheerful tone of this post. I really am trying to focus on the positives, like how well my grandmother in Texas is recovering. I just dread having to find a way to handle another roller-coaster week like this one.