And exhale slowly

Being really busy distracts me from outside thoughts, but I think it's actually a good thing since I tend to organize my free time better if I'm working. At the same time, with this particular job I took on I have so much to think about that it gives me restless sleep, and I tend to forget to eat during the day because so much has to be done. I'm not liking the path that's going down, but on the other hand I've put myself to bed when tired.

The job I took on is at my many-times previous employer, a community and housing nonprofit, of various positions to help internally relocate and renovate the staff on site. It's really been 30+ years since the main office has been updated, and now much of the renovation is urgent. With some major deadlines included. In short, much juggling of information and needs that grow daily, and all the responsibility of organizing it and putting the plan I set in motion forward. This is my second week on the job, and it encompasses nearly all my thoughts. I'm a little tired, and don't remember what I spent my time doing by the end of the day, but have a list to organize for the following days by that point. I am literally kept so busy that I don't have time to think as I go, just think about what I am currently doing.

The graphic design work for this same place is at completion; I just need to confirm and see the printing through, and get my last check.


To take away from all the stress, and to get our laundry done, Jon and I went back to my parents' house this weekend and last week to take Pavlov out. It's not unusual, but we took him down to the cliff beach again to enjoy the weather, where we came across a dead sea lion someone tried to bury, and hung out drawing pictures in the sand.

On Details

I'm at my parents' house, riffling through a literal mountain range of papers in front of my mother's computer in a frantic search for some tax return documents that she hasn't had the time to find yet, but I need soon.

Pausing between stacks, I pull out the keyboard tray, which conveniently holds office supplies and not keyboard, to search for a rubber band to keep all the statements I've found so far together.

There, in the midst of pens and erasers, is an old Russ® Troll pencil-topper, barely taller than an inch, with its hair threaded into seven neat little braids.

...And the Silence In Between

The past few weeks, the whole month of January has been a harrowing affair. It's here where the shortcomings of language make themselves obvious to me, to not be able to put into words even a hint of how feel.

And truth be told, I don't even know how I feel. Hollow, perhaps. As if a white-walled maze has suddenly been lowered around me, where the smell of fresh air and endless landscape still surrounds me, sits underfoot, but is unobtainable until I find my way to the exit.

I've truly lost track of time. The days bleed together at the edges almost seamlessly, in part because I'm only working a contract job at the moment on my own time, and simply because they aren't very different. My time has revolved around my grandmother, my own respiratory problems of which I'd been suffering greatly last week till a doctor's visit, and much less so my commission work.

Popo ("my grandmother") had a nasty fall sometime on the 3rd of January—presumably. Presumably, because my parents found her on the 5th when we came up to Chinatown for our at-least weekly visit in the bathroom, on the floor. In her old bedroom was a pool of blood, and on the right side of her head a horrific cut and bruise that in a horrifically comical way resembled the scar of Zuko, from the Avatar series.

My boyfriend and I were about twenty minutes behind my parents, so I only heard that "Popo had a fall," as my mom still feels the need to cover up the extent of emergency to me, and that I needed to come pick up some food to take to my sister's party that evening.

I did not expect to see my grandmother's street blocked by an ambulance. I did not expect to see how bruised and tired my grandma was, as two EMS workers hefted her into the back. A lot of screaming at honking traffic behind us ensued; Chinatown streets are notoriously one way, one lane.

It was horrifying the first few days at the hospital. She looked so small and helpless, especially with blood under her fingernails and eyes so small and questioning without glasses to frame them.
Popo is a stubborn woman, especially so at 92 years old. Stubborn enough to decide at first that she was ready to go. Dispensing bits of wisdom and trying to mentally parcel out her possessions to her grandchildren. Asking us why we wouldn't let them administer the pill or the shot that would end it all.

After a few days of heavy drug dosage and treatment, though, she pulled herself together and started to recuperate in anticipation of returning back to her apartment. And she made so much progress under the following week. Her bruise healed up, she went from IV feeding to nasty puree, to using the bathroom—the actual bathroom—to sitting up and feeding herself, conversing.

On my own end, from stress and weather, I started developing breathing/asthma related problems, which discouraged me from seeing her move from ER to the convalescent home just a block further away.

It may have been the bad turn she took wasn't due strictly to the inadequacy or unwillingness of staff, but they certainly didn't help alleviate or take much notice of the heavy coughing that developed in Popo her first night there, but a few days later she was back in ER because nobody took care of the fluid that built up again in her lungs.

I'd finally gone to the doctor by this point, slathering up my diet with helpful doses of prednisone (steroids, to help my breathing) and amoxicillin, and, well. It's clear the fight has gone out of her. In part, I'm sure, from the drugs, and the treatment they've been administering to help get the fluid out of her lungs.

Since I was sick and unable to visit at the time, my mother told me that my grandmother's recovery would be delayed. She did not tell me about the irregular heart rate that occurred in Popo the other night without warning, the one we recognize so well in movies to mean the end of the line.

But there's not really any conversation anymore. There is helping her use the commode. There is her fidgeting in bed, sleeping. Before she'd gone to the convalescent home, she was entirely coherent; her problems were physical and not mental. Now, I can't tell. I suspect a lot of it is caused by being doped up on medicine, but who knows, because I can't ask Popo point blank why she feels the way she does.

It feels very heavy in my gut. To top it off with a self-absorbed glance, the stress has delayed my cycles and today my period finally came, extremely painful in the abdomen.

The doctor, after finally being pressed by my mother for a realistic assessment told us that she would probably not make it beyond two weeks from now. I am not in denial of this possibility, but it was such a swift and drastic return from the progress I'd seen her make just a week ago. I would almost say that it feels like someone decided to mock my grandmother's attempt at recovery by giving us false hope, but this is not unnatural or unusual, setbacks. It's merely a way of life. All we have to rely on is the charts, as Popo is mostly resting. The charts say she grows weaker.

Perhaps she will get better; we tell her she'll still be going back home. I just wonder which meaning of home our reassurance implies. Now is the desire to remove the suffering, put at peace. Do Not Resuscitate.

The pit of my being aches something awful. I've been to many funerals, but these were either family further removed, or far back enough into my youth that the depths of a bond weren't realized enough. The depths of a bond that hold us together, that go beyond merely blood ties, of being woken up at 12am to be fed slices of bacon on toast, beyond a tight hug, or trips to Portsmouth Square to chase pigeons. The pure bond that makes a mockery of words, as I am doing so in writing.

Having lost the desire to eat, draw, knit, write, interact, smile. The days bleed further together because I can't even think, the past few weeks being more of a big blank, staring at the white walls of my mind if not focusing on my breathing, or mindless watching of Futurama and animated Batman to take my mind off taking my mind off.

Needing a peace of mind.

On Peace of Mind and Mortality

Popo (my grandmother) was found last Saturday in the bathroom on the floor; Saturdays are the days we always visit and have dinner, if not also other days of the week.

According to the medics she was probably lying there for at least a day. There was a pool of blood by the nightstand in the "guest" bedroom, which is really the bedroom that she used to share with my grandfather when he was still alive. There is a horribly huge bruise covering half her head.

We'd just come back from spending a week around Christmas in LA to visit my cousins (and her great-granddaughter, too), which was actually pretty relaxing in all. Or at least, it was relaxing on my end; my sister and I and Stonewall were lucky enough to stay with one cousin, leaving us neatly out of any drama circles that probably ensued in our absence.

I wonder, since Popo had just seen family and is obviously feeling her 91 years of age nowadays, if it was related at all. After seeing family all together and well, and being easily exhausted (we had just procured an assisted wheelchair before we left).

When I first saw her in the hospital she started dispensing the sort of wisdom you get from someone who doesn't expect to see another day. She looked extremely tired, and frail. I'm pretty sure her eyes were never that small before, even when she took her glasses off. Two IVs--one for blood. It was frightening--until my sister reminded me that seven years back when I started college (...Jesus, has it really been that long) she took a tumble down the stairs leading to her apartment, and ran through the same dialogue in the hospital.

That, and the doctors said she'd be back on her feet by sometime next week, latest. She's a pretty tough old lady.

Jon and I are moving in for a few months while he goes through his EMT course in the city, along with the fact that we want to move up there soon...and we'll be able to keep Popo company as well.

I would never bring this up in front of my mom, but I really wonder how much longer she's got. At the same time, I'd rather not think about it.