Friday, Apr. 15, 2005
7:55 p.m.
Only half of my finger is still numbish. The Internet says numbish is bad, and doctors should be seen. I figure since it's half gone after 24 hours, I should be all better by tomorrow, right?
However, if that happens not to be the case, it's looking like I'll be in a hospital tomorrow anyway.
My grandfather was diagnosed with cancer last year, and they treated him for it. Having been here at uni, I don't really know any of the details about any of it. I gather that he's really not been getting any better in spite of things having been fixed. Yesterday they ran tests and he's pretty severely cancerous. Right now I'm trying to get hold of the Grown Ups.
The fact of it is, I don't want to do this. I don't want to drive two hours to see my grandfather in the hospital. I loathe hospitals. I loathe the death and the sickness and the pain that floats around them like a sickly green aura. I would rather stand over a coffin than a hospital bed.
I can do funerals, those are easy. My parents have been taking me to funerals since before I could walk. I've only been to three or four weddings, but I can't even remember the number of funerals. I can manage Death, but I don't want to do what I'm invariably going to have to do soon.
On top of that, we have the fact that my grandmother really doesn't have much left in the way of mental capacities. She stayed with my uncle for a while and kept trying to go down into the basement to go to bed. My uncle's house has no bedrooms downstairs, but at her house, she sleeps downstairs. This also, I know only from reports.
Basically, in the last two years I have been home Christmas Eve. So I'm not lucky enough to get to watch things day by day, and so I don't know really who my grandparents will be. I don't want to have to deal with the sudden change. I would rather be called and told it was over. I don't want to really know the reality of how bad either of them are.
What's the point of living to be over eighty if you're not really living? My grandmother used to be a smart, capable woman, and she's not anymore. She used to win prizes for her cooking and didn't follow recipies for a lot of the things she made, she can't cook anymore. My grandfather is an avid geneologist and keeps up written correspondence with friends and relations all over the country. He doesn't have the energy to do that anymore. I remember his gardens every summer, and hearing about all the places he travelled to. He can't do any of that anymore.
This isn't fair.