Dealing with my grandfather after his Alzheimer's got bad was the worst. He was a different person.

As Tim's dad's dementia progressed, he lost his filter for appropriate conversation, and would make sexual comments all the time. And it was really jarring not just because it was gross and inappropriate, but because it was such a 180 from his pre-dementia personality.

My dad turns 81 on Tuesday, and his personality is unchanged; unfortunately, he's just an asshole who it turns out I don't like very much.

My mom will be 77 this year and is still teaching yoga and hiking and camping (they stay in cabins now; that's the only concession to her age she's made). Over the summer she went to Italy for 2 weeks with a group from her church. I'm half convinced that she's Hob Gadling.

(I thought that would take two posts. I'm kind of amazed it didn't.)

I think even in the middle of your unloading you still managed to edit out most of the mean things she said to you.

My mom was an alcoholic and when she got drunk she'd say the most purposefully hurtful things to me. And then forget what she said when she sobered up.

It caused me to emotionally distance myself from her in high school, and it took a lot of work to be there for her and forgive her when she was dying of cancer (after college).

But I was able to because I knew she truly loved me and despite those periods of her lashing out, she had undergone so much trauma and violence in her childhood that she had really been very heroic in damming that back and not passing it on to me. Self medicating with alcohol let some leaks spring out though.

I had a conversation with my sister this last year where a lot of family history came out which really made me understand both of my parents in a different context. All these broken pieces of my childhood memory suddenly making a new picture. (My sister is 8 years older than me so she had witnessed things when I was a baby.)

My sister herself has been living with cancer for the last 2+ years so I think she felt it was time to unlock some family secrets.

2022 was a fucking whirlwind.

Jan/Feb, I wrapped up a massive work project that had been 4 years in progress, and the internet got really mad about it (this was when we shut down the Comixology website and old apps).

That same weekend in Feb we took the family to the Grand Canyon and almost got snowed in (we left a day early and spent one night in Sedona to avoid driving through a blizzard).

In June I went on a 2-week study abroad to Israel. I ate some incredible food, made amazing friends, walked more than 10 miles the day of Tel Aviv Pride (it was Shabbat, there were no buses, and Pride had been moved from a parade down the central avenue to the far east end of a park on the north end of the city), and had dinner with Nilly and Shir (THE BEST!!!)

In July I got promoted. More money, better title, more authority.

In August I went sailing with Jason Schneider for the last time. In October Jason died of pancreatic cancer. You folks will understand what I mean when I say Jason's death left an ita-sized hold in the world.

In November I turned 44. I went to Jason's funeral on my birthday.

In December I presented my final Food Studies research project and completed my Master's degree.

On Wednesday the entire Comixology team at Amazon was laid off. I am part of a skeleton crew who will stay on through the summer to tie up loose ends, but my role has been eliminated and if I don't find another job by then I will be unemployed starting October 1st.

I'm grateful to be in a slightly better place than my colleagues whose last day was Wednesday (yes we've all noted the cruelty of laying off the comics team on a Wednesday, yes we are calling it Red Wednesday), but it's been the worst fucking week coming at the end of some of the worst fucking months.

Cindy, one of my brother's dogs had vestibular disease. since we thought she was seizing, the second chance with her was wonderful.

I will see my mother for the next time on Sunday, 1.22.2023.

I will be sending all manner of ~ma and vibes tomorrow for this. It is so very hard. I have had a couple of close loved ones have psychic breaks when they were ill and they would say the worst painful things imaginable. Even knowing it is the drugs/disease/pain causing the vitriol, it hurts the same. Do what you need to and take sanity breaks.

2022 was a fucking whirlwind.

Indeed! Quite a roller coaster of life events. I hope 2023 is calmer.

I am probably going to delete my long post. I love my mom, and I don't want to disrespect her. It was just a rough couple of months. We revisited things we'd already healed, and she doesn't remember most of it, but it was like acid on my soul.

Hec, I know JZ, Matilda, Emmett, and you are really going through it right now. I appreciate your support and candor. You know I want every good thing for Jacqueline, and for you.

Teppy, more than once during our whole ordeal, I thought of your stories about Tim's dad (I lurk). Thank you, honey.

Thank you everyone else too (JenP, dcp, Laura, Calli, Dana, and everyone). Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.

Erika, we thought she either had a sudden onset of some hip dysplasia, or something, or a stroke, or a brain tumor, or a seizure. It was so scary.

Jessica, I'm sorry about the job situation, and especially about Jason. IMO, all the other cancers think pancreatic cancer is an asshole.

discospondylitis

Cass, I hope the doggie is okay. Is this dog the dog formerly known as "Puppycat" (or was that a cat)? "Discospondylitis" would be a hell of a band name, but a quick Google shows treatment isn't so short. I hope your dog is feeling better soon. We've had this girl 10 years (as of December) and it still amazes me how much she owns every single one of our hearts.

___

For the record, my mother is doing so much better now. She is her again. And most of our bygones were already bygones, until she was awful (and she was mostly awful because the meds messed her up, and her injury was so painful). Now I've just got recently picked scabs that again need to heal.

Opioids do not agree with her. (At. All). I don't think I've ever seen my mother tipsy. She doesn't like the feeling, so I think (in addition to her injury) she has a bad reaction to opioids that brings out the worst in her, probably because she resists them.

One of my most amusing memories of the whole time was the first time she took Vicodin. About an hour after taking it, she slurred in a sitcom-drunk voice, "This isn't doing anything." I just kind of said, "Yeah. I can see that" The Vicodin was never sufficient, and she ended up on Oxy, which made her worse. Once she got off the opioids, she was much more manageable.

We're now mostly recovered from the COVID bout. Which I'm using as an excuse to not call my family members right now. See also, I don't even want to start.

Yeah. I kind of appreciated DH's Covid in a selfish way. I didn't want him sick, of course. We've been one of the most careful families in the world for the past three years (mostly because of C's course of immunosuppressants), but once the genie was out of the bottle, it was kind of nice to say, "I can't come over," without it coming from selfishness.

(Understand that from the time she was injured, until after the procedure and after Christmas, I actually felt much better when I was with my mother, than when I was home worrying about her.)

When mom was hospitalized, a couple of weeks after the injury, although it ended with the kyphoplasty (in addition to her L4 compression fracture, she had an old T11 [I think] fracture we'd never known about), it wasn't so much for the injury.

The hospitalization was for her gut (and this is a long story I'm not going to burden you with), so they did Xrays and a CT. The CT showed some inflammation on her bile duct. The first hospitalist hand-waved it. The second hospitalist was all, "We have to check this out NOW," but then the hospital couldn't accommodate the MRI order on account of emergency admits. Then mom just decided, I will wait until I'm over this, until I deal with that. And? I'm tired of fighting.

The slug for this thread reads:

Take stock, reflect, butch, moan, vent. We are all here for it.

I wasn't prepared, but I think I can.

I’m so sorry you had to go through all that. I’m glad your Mom is doing better, Cindy, but sheeesh that’s some traumatic shit. Take care of yourself!

That is so much, Cindy. Even knowing that your Mom wasn't reacting well to pain meds, that is so much. Very difficult even when there is love there. Hoping you do not see her like this again, It's so fraught.

Puppycat was a kitty but she passed a while back.

I thought I knew about dogs and super accidentally failed as a foster. After that, I had an unintentional dog but I love her without reservation.

Shelby (she has no nom de Net) and her interesting woes seems to be improving. It's a long road back to health for her, as you very accurately read. But here's hoping.