24 Sick, sad anniversary, new computer, Applebees, HSH bomb, bronchitis

09-29-04 Mayatime 12.19.11.11.15 2 Men 18 Chen

I’ve been very sick, therefore I haven’t been doing much of anything. I just realized today is the 10th anniversary of my red lory Scarlett’s death. :( She was only six years old. She died of a septic blood infection. I did not even know she was ill, or I would have brought her to the vet.

Anyway, not much to report about my dad. I see him at least once a week, sometimes more. It seems like he’s in his own little world. He just stares off into space. If I call his name, after two or three repetitions, he’ll blink and look at me and say “Hi, Berta” and then I can (attempt to) carry on a conversation with him. If more than one person is talking, he usually drifts away again rather than try to follow what’s being said.

My mom’s computer died (turns out it was exactly 5 years old, almost to the day). Will and I were going to build her a new one, but it’s cheaper to buy a brand-name one. She likes Dell, so I got her a Dell for only $559. Her last Dell was over $1500 and of course, this one is way better. How funny is that. It would have been more but she didn’t need speakers or a monitor. I would have deducted the keyboard & mouse too, but they don’t let you. I was going over there on Monday to download Netscape 7.1 (if you haven’t gotten it yet, do it! Pop-up blocker, tabs so you can have lots of web pages open in one browser window, it remembers passwords, it’s great!) and do some other stuff. My dad’s truck was in the driveway. I parked behind it and just then he came out. Here is the conversation: “Dad, are you leaving?” “Are you coming back?” “Do I need to move my car? Are you going somewhere right now?” “Yeah, when are you coming back?” “I’m not leaving, I’m moving my car. When are you coming back?” “I’ll come back later. I’ll see you later. Bye, Berta, it was nice to see you.” During this I made the mistake of asking if he’d taken his Alzheimer’s pill yet (he’s supposed to take it at 3 p.m. , and it was about five after) and that really confused him even more).

On Saturday Will & I went over there to do the initial set-up of the computer. In return, Mom took us to dinner—Applebee’s. The usual with my father “do I like this?” but he picked something different this time, instead of chicken and broccoli he got chicken parmesan. He ate it all but later on said he wouldn’t get it again. I got ice cream and chocolate cake for dessert and gave my dad the ice cream (he loves ice cream. He used to like black raspberry, now he likes plain vanilla).

There was a car show in the Walmart parking lot so we walked around. Some people had a cute little dog with them, and we talked to them and played with the dog (Bichon Frise). My dad was telling this incomprehensible story about that fatherbiter cat on his leash. I felt bad for the people trying to be nice and listen to him.

Funny that while I was over my parents on Saturday night, I was talking about my godmother (who is my mom’s cousin) and my mother said that no one had heard from her or her sister (godmother’s sister, not mom’s sister—mom hasn’t got a sister, or a brother for that matter). The next day, Sunday, Will and I called to say we’d be late because we went to see Shaun of the Dead in Southington and when we got to Grandma’s, guess who was there? My godmother & her sister.

My dad didn’t talk much. The more people who are around, the less he says.

So if you’ve been reading this AND looking at my busy teaching schedule, no doubt you are thinking, “hmm, wasn’t she supposed to be in Attleboro teaching Holographic Sound Healing this weekend?” Why yes I was, thank you for remembering! I spent all last week preparing like mad for the class. Turns out that the CDs don’t contain meditations from the book so I transcribed them all. I re-read the book. I copied all my notes from both times I took it and put them in my teacher’s manual. I exhausted myself, in other words. (This is on top of a similar week the week before, preparing for the 2-day Mayanism workshop). On Friday morning I got stuck behind some school buses and other assorted traffic so I was a little late getting to Mass. I’m at exit 8 in RI getting gas when my cell rings. It’s my student, calling SIX minutes before the class is scheduled to begin. . .to cancel.

I’m not even going to go into how pissed off I was (am).

I spent the day with my friend Sarah (it was her store where I was teaching). We went bead shopping, had pizza, and made jewelry. I got home at 10 p.m. Friday night. So that part was good, hanging out with Sarah. I gave her a Holographic Sound treatment and she set up some distance Reiki to dump on me every night at 1 a.m.

The reason she did that is because of my bronchitis. I started coughing at the end of August. It got worse and worse. Finally I went to my doctor and he said I have bronchitis (which I’ve never had before, although I have had horrible chronic coughs), which explains why my right lung was gurgling audibly when I breathed. He gave me a five-day antibiotic. Nothing. (This might be a repeat of information, if so, forgive me, I’m trying to get the story all in one place). In fact, I got worse. I started coughing so hard I was vomiting (sometimes just wads of mucus, sometimes the food I’d recently eaten). When I cough that hard, I literally and absolutely cannot breathe for a few seconds. Then I start sucking in air, wheezing horribly, spots before my eyes, ready to collapse. (You should see me when I’m driving and a coughing spell hits. Real scary.) A few minutes later I start to belch because I swallowed so much air trying to breathe. Yeah, I can tell how JEALOUS you are that you aren’t sick too. So the doctor gave me a prescription for cough medicine with codeine and a different, 7-day antibiotic. The cough medicine sucks, I get better results with generic Nyquil-type stuff. And the antibiotic did NOTHING. So I have either antibiotic-resistant bronchitis or viral bronchitis (or viral pneumonia).

So that’s why I haven’t been updating this for a while, if you were wondering. Not much going on with Dad to report, and too sick to document any other aspects of my life. (1167)