Monday, Jul. 11, 2005 - 4:26 p.m.
Fourth of July weekend.
Therefore it was a long weekend. I used mine to go to Michigan. The original reason and plan was to go for my cousin David’s graduation party. He’s one of my favorite cousins and I wanted to be there. It was also a good way to get Jairo up there to meet the crazy extended family.
Two days before I was to head up, my reason for going was . . . adjusted.
I had talked to my grandpa to ask if we could stay at his house. Of course we could and I knew that but it was more of a formality to remind him I was coming and let him know I was bringing Jairo with me. He’d sounded a little ill and said he was having a little trouble with his left lung but that it seemed to just be a cold. The very day after I talked to him my mother called me. Grandpa had been coughing up blood. And didn’t want to listen to the doctor’s advice to go into the hospital because “he had guests coming from out of town.”
Things tend to move quickly with things like this and by the end of the day, the original fear of a blood clot or pulmonary embolism was evaporated by something equally bad if not worse – x-rays show two golf ball size tumors on my grandfather’s left lung that weren’t there six months ago. Suddenly this visit was vastly more important than it had been.
So, Thursday I went to the mechanic and got an oil change, rotated my tires, had the fuel injectory system cleaned, and learned that my engine fans are broken. So when I’m moving, the air rushing through the engine keeps it cool, but when I’m stopped, nothing is cooling it down. With no time or money to fix this, I had to hope there would be no traffic. (Also because Jairo despises car trips and I was hoping this would be a good chance to show him they’re not that bad).
Friday I left work early so that we could get an early start. My bad. Jairo’s job didn’t let him leave early like they were supposed to. So we still didn’t get going until 4.
And it things started immediately. We’d gone no further than New Jersey, an hour and half into our trip when we hit rush hour traffic. Standstill. So we had to exit and go to a diner for over an hour. Once we started going again, things were fine until midway through Pennsylvania, where we hit construction traffic and had to pull over twice and just sit. It was about there that my windshield wiper fluid stopped spraying and my odometer broke. And yet, we were still doing ok.
It was Ohio that killed it. I hadn’t even been speeding regularly, but at one point I followed a mini van that was going pretty quick and when they hit their breaks for a cop, I hit mine, but the cop picked me. My first speeding ticket. And that was the end of the calm peaceful vibe.
When we got to Michigan, finally, my mother’s directions left us just lost enough to make the trip an hour and a half longer than it would have been, and we arrived hours later than we should have, 24 hours after I’d woken up for work the previous day. And I’d failed to show my boyfriend that traveling could be nice – in fact, this trip probably made things worse.
We went to pass out, but I couldn’t quite yet. And then it was restless sleep. While I was out, my family started taking care of things for me. Matt and Steve did some things that seemed to fix my car. Changing some fuses and reconnecting the wiper fluid hose. Grandpa paid my speeding ticket. I should have been (and now can think like this again) happy to have family that will help me out. But at that moment, after such a horrible failure of a trip, it just felt like one more way I couldn’t get things done on my own.
Things turned around once I got some sleep and perspective.
We headed to my Aunt Wilma’s house for the graduation party in honor of my cousin David. Poor Jairo had to deal with my crazy extended family. But it was nice.
That night I fell to sleep very easily. The next day we hung out with Grandpa and he took us to Nick’s, a diner he goes to pretty often. The food was excellent and the waitress was incredibly nice. Grandpa talks to all the people there like he knows them. Later we had dinner and then we visited with my Uncle Butch’s family and Aunt Wilma’s again. That evening we ended up sitting on their front porch watching fireworks.
The next morning we had to leave.
Leaving was hard. Harder than it’s been in the past. This time, I realized that I’d not been there in a long time. The last few times I’ve seen everyone has been in TN. I’d almost forgotten how peaceful it was to just be there, with my family, sitting around at Grandpa’s, chatting and listening to him tell bad jokes. Forgotten how nice it is to spend some time around some members of my family. I’d gotten used to being apart from them, but for the first time in a long time I just wanted to stretch the moments out.
Grandpa got upset when I left and that affected me a lot.
The trip back was better. There wasn’t any major traffic jams and we moved at a steady pace. I think it helped Jairo’s hatred of car trips. Which helps me because I needed to know that I could get him to go on them with me.
Thursday, Grandpa had a test done to check his lungs and take a biopsy of the tumors to check for malignancy. They said his bronchial tubes were pretty much clear and they’ll have the results for the tumors on Tuesday.
I feel. . . well, I don’t know how I feel.
Part of me feels like normal. Everything seems fine. It’s going to end up being something minor and we’re all worried for nothing. But there’s this other half of me that’s preparing. Or trying to.
The thing is, I realized, when my grandmother died. Even when she was getting sick and on her deathbed, I was ready for it. It was time. I’m not ready for this to be it.
But I refuse to talk to him like it’s something horrible. He keeps saying stuff about “once I get this lung thing taken care of” and my mom thinks he’s so unaware. I think he’s just choosing not to focus negatively. And I’m not going to make him.
And I’m pissed at my mother. I can’t understand how she can still be smoking. She has little heart attacks because of cigarette smoke, her mother told her on her deathbed to stop smoking, her father now has emphazema and probably lung cancer. What the hell more incentive does she need to quit?!?
Since the trip I hate to admit it but life has pretty much gone back to normal. Except that I had to catch up on some sleep. I’m waiting to see what they say tomorrow.
