To those who commented on LJ, thanks for your words.  Your thoughts and prayers mean a lot   Now, if you have a weak stomach, you probably ought to think on not reading this.

Dad went into surgery this afternoon as I was out gathering overnight-supplies and running other general errands.  Rushed to finish everything up as quickly as possible so I could meet back up with Mom.  So we sat.  And sat.  And munched the little bit of protein I brought up.  And sat.  TV. Sat.  Wait.  The surgery lasted nearly four hours, which is pretty freaking insane for a laproscopic procedure.  But well, the doc did say it was quite possibly the worst gallbladder he had ever seen.  Full of rocks, pus, infection, nasty, and all sorts of fun… which burst as they were pulling it through one of the incisions.  So they spent a good hour, hour and a half, flushing out the infected-explosion.

But he came out and went back to his regular room on second floor.  He’s looking good, in a lot of ways.  All should be clear, but there is still the chance that they didn’t get everything all flushed, so they’re probably going to keep him til Sunday so they can closely monitor him and drop the big-shit antibiotics.

And nowww… I think I’m going to get some solid food, a nice stiff drink to settle my nerves, and start looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

Dad went in for his scan today… got all prepped up and, well, didn’t get the scan cos of turning green-to-white with every shade in between, and nearly hitting the floor.  He was taken over to the ER, where he had a CT scan, which showed that yep, it is his gallbladder, and it’s chock full o’ rocks.  Then there’s the persistent fever he’s had since last night on top of that, meaning infection.  I overheard his Doc saying his abdomen was “red hot”, IE, on the precipice of getting critical.  On the one hand, I’m not worried much, because I’ve been-there and done-that already, narrowly missing the complication of pancreatitis.  On the other hand, Mom is worried.  And that worries me.

I wake up this morning (Wednesday) at about 7:30, suddenly bolting out of bed in an “oh, SHIT!” style, rushing around to find skivvies and trousers and shirt when I realize… wait. My alarm didn’t go off. Maybe I should check the damn phone before I get in a panic. Yeah, I didn’t have to be awake until 8:30. So I stand there for a minute, debating whether or not to just stay up, wake up, and study up for my exam at noon. I come to the conclusion of “fuck it” and fall back in bed, where I have a dream that it’s the end of the world, so Addy, Terro and I are all hanging out being very angel-ho! and trying to organize some salvation. Meanwhile, Adam, a dude from my German class, is an archangel in the dream… who is hiding in a fridge because he doesn’t like this whole “end of the world” business.  At any rate, the world decides to stop ending, so we’re all, “hooray”, as Adam crawls out of the fridge. And then my alarm goes off, and my day actually begins.

It begins with me finding my brother downstairs, who tells me that Dad is in the hospital. That would’ve been nice to know, oh, I don’t know, when he was being taken to the hospital? Sorry, sorry… that just bugs me that I don’t know this shit until way after it’s happened. I immediately start conjuring ideas up about how I could maybe, probably, possibly use this to get out of having to take my exam at noon, but nah, not if it isn’t serious. And I know, I know, that makes me sound like a horrible selfish bitch, but hear me out. It’s rarely serious, cos of Dad is a whiner… you know the ones that think they’re dying if they get a case of the sniffles? Not in a hypochondriac style, but a big ol’ pitiful baby style. That’s Dad. Not that I’m bad-mouthing it or anything… he’s cute as a button when he’s sick. At any rate, turns out it may actually be something, in the area of the gallbladder. Which again, isn’t serious, but hurts like a motherfucker anyway. So I’ve made sure to be extra nice and not poke fun of the sickie. He was released, and is scheduled for a test tomorrow. If it’s NOT the gallbladder though… well. Hmm.

Went on into class, banged out my exam. Didn’t go so well. I swear to god, I did actually write “Chuck E. Cheese’s” as a movement which led to the development of social work as a profession. Also, some other “prominent” figure in social welfare was listed by me as being “so not in Wikipedia”. I only choked terribly on about a fifth of the exam, which, if I get every other question right, isn’t bad. But I never count on getting everything else right…

Came back home to watch over Dad while Mom ran errands, happy for the excuse to skip out on Micro. He slept. I reorganized my papers and notebooks. Made a pizza run, and settled in for the debate. And, when I first started writing all this, I had quite a bit to say about McCain’s Healthcare Plan of Epic Fail, plus a sidetrack into just what’s wrong with the American education system (adding more strength to the idea of being a school counselor… srsly), but… now I’m just not much in the mood for that sort of talk.

Sadly, what I really DO want to talk about isn’t something I feel like talking about in a public setting… and not really even in LJ, either (though those on LJ know a bit more detail already). Just private, thankful thoughts on just how strange life is, and how lucky I am, and how amazed I am that everything I ever hoped for, but shrugged off as unrealistic, was actually very real — very attainable. As I said tonight… were it any other time, under any other circumstance, with any other person, I would be shitting my pants right now. But for once, for the first time… I’m not scared of the uncertainties and difficulties that surely lie ahead. I’m actually entirely comfortable with this. Excited about this. Hell, I even feel like I need this. This is the path set out before me, and not taking that path would defy all reason.

Knowing myself as I do… I know that being able to say that is pretty fucking monumental.

Since those who replied to my LJ Poll with the answer of “no effing way chix0r” are spectacularly uber, and I would hate not having their input on things, I’ve decided to leave LJ comments open on these blog posts.  Ah well.  It was worth the shot.  Thanks for the input!

So yeah, in case you couldn’t gather from my Flickr feed, I have myself a car.  Nothing new.  In fact, it’s the same car I’ve been driving for years, but only because Mum was wonderful enough to share it with me for as long as I stayed under this roof, and all my activites were local.  With being a commuting student next semester, though, sharing would’ve been rather difficult.  So Mom bought herself a new 2008 Chevy Cobalt, and gave the ol’ Cavalier to me.
So that’s pretty damn nifty, if I may say so.  Now I just have to work on not wrecking it like the last hand-me-down Cavalier   Or, at least, wreck it with five gallons of something that smells better than milk.  *ribjab*  Then again, I’ve already wrecked this one once (Cockrell’s did a beautiful body job on it!), so maybe I’m safe.

Cleaning the damned thing was an all-day event.  Heh.

In other news, I think this might be year-two of being sick all summer.  At least I’m in brighter spirits this year… I just wish my guts would follow suit.