Wednesday, Jun. 30, 2004
Week home, posted at 6:19 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I'm back in my hometown. It's nice. I'd forgotten a bit what stars look like in the sky away from the city lights, and I'm feeling relaxed and healthy for the first time in a while.This visit home was met with a bit of trepidation by me. You see, my mom's sick. I haven't mentioned it on here yet, but it's time. She was diagnosed a few months ago with Hepatitis C and liver disease. A nurse since 1982 or so, she probably got in upwards of twenty years ago from a contaminated needle or before the days of stringent rubber glove use.
I've only been hearing bits and pieces of her illness over the phone. I hear about biopsies, about extreme exhaustion, about nausea. But I hadn't see her in person, and I was worried things were being kept from me.
But, I think she's okay. Her liver damage is bad, but it could be worse. The disease is not fun, but it's treatable. No transplant is needed yet, and they'll see how she is in a year's time. She's still working.
I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that this is the same disease that Pamela Anderson and the mother of the Judds have. Both are okay.
Anyhow, it's great to see her. I hope she's not faking things for me, but she seems normal. Okay. I drove her around today because she was tired, but she was able to do grocery shopping if I pushed the cart. She's going to a candle party tonight.
***
Nothing else is new. The drive back to Michigan sucked ass. I left at 7:30am and didn't pull into my parents' driveway until 9pm. I ate horribly the entire trip and stopped almost hourly. I got a strawberry shake in the morning and a Dairy Queen sundae in the evening. I also ate almost a bag and a half of Trader Joe's broccoli, to even things out a bit, but it just made the car smell horribly by the end of the trip, if you know what I mean. I listened to a book-on-tape version of The Da Vinci Code, and, let me tell you, I don't understand the hype. But I'm only on chapter 37, which sounds like a lot but it's actually only tape 5 of an 11-tape set, so I'm guessing there are almost 200 chapters in this freaking book. I haven't gotten to the Jesus banging Mary Magdalene part, on other words. So far, it's just a mediocre mystery with some crummy leaps of logic; I'm hoping all the weird religious stuff will make it interesting for me. The other book on tape I got was a radio production of Othello (apprently I thought I was smart or something) and Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods (heard it was good), and all are primed and ready for the ride home. That is, if I can tear myself away from Jay Z and Melissa Ferrick.
Today, I spent hours washing and waxing my car, did some reading (finished Moneyball, and am starting George P. Jones' novel The Known World, which just won the Pulitzer), and ran some errands with mom. Tonight, we're going to spend some time on the boat, and then we're going to the movies and seeing Spiderman 2. Movies only cost $3.50 here. Unfortunately, I wanted to take my sister to see Farenheit 9/11, since she is voting in a battleground state, but it doesn't appear to playing anywhere in all of conservative southwest Michigan. Not even the big theaters in Benton Harbor or Holland are playing it.
Tomorrow, it's off to Detroit for a Tigers game. Life is good.