Where I’ve Been and Where I’m Going

Where I’ve Been:
I have been out of game and basically offline completely for the past 28 days or so due to a family emergency. Except that’s not exactly as black and white as it seems. Most people have no idea what’s going on or why I’ve been absent, but even the people that do know the basics don’t really understand the family dynamics at work. So I thought I’d take a shot at trying to explain it real quickly.

Approximately 28 days ago, my 86 year old grandfather was crushed under a tree that was being cut down by my father, but fell early and unexpectedly. It also fell the opposite direction of where they planned it to go. This is a serious injury for old people. He was knocked unconscious immediately, 911 was called and he was airlifted 2 hours away to a trauma hospital in the city where I live. My entire family lives within miles of each other in a small, rural community. I’m the only one who escaped to civilization lives away from them.

Grandad was critically injured. His left scapula was broken in 2 places, his lungs were bruised and 8 ribs were broken, his lower back was broken, his pelvic bone was broken on the right side and his right femur was broke in 2 places. The next morning they did surgery on his femur to insert a steel rod, but he was not stable enough to have any other surgeries. The rest of his breaks are being left alone in the hopes they will heal fairly straightly on their own. It took him 4 days to wake up after being put under for his surgery, but he finally did and was downgraded to stable condition. After another week in ICU, he was moved to a private room. However, he is still in the hospital in the city where I live.

I am the responsible one in the family. Even if I didn’t want to be, I’m expected to be. But I generally take responsibility on willingly. Probably connected to my whole Virgo and servitude thing. The day of the accident my mom called me and asked me to rush right over to the hospital because it was going to take them 2 hours to get there. So I went over and met with the ER doctors, heard all the gory details, was taken to see him in all his bloody (lots of scratches from the tree and ground), broken misery. I started filling out his paperwork and making decisions that needed to be made urgently. I am someone who is calm in emergency situations, so when my parents did finally arrive, I was still in charge of the situation. And I have remained in charge of the situation ever since then. Whether I want to be or not.

We all stayed in the ICU waiting room for 3 or 4 days after it first happened because the doctors told us he’d be lucky to make it through each day. Once he finally woke up after surgery and was considered stable instead of critical, most of the family went back home. Except for my mother. My grandmother is in a nursing home immobile and suffering from dementia, so she is unable to visit him. Which means my mom is the main person who cares for Grandad. Since she is retired and lives 2 hours away, she’s been living with me ever since the accident so she can be at the hospital around 20 hours a day and not waste time and money driving back and forth.

Not only have I spent the past 4 weeks sleeping in chairs at the hospital and then on my own couch at home, I’m also not getting as much sleep as normal and when mom and I are home together in the evenings we watch her TV shows and I don’t “play” on my computer because video games are dumb. Yes, I realize I’m an adult and this is my house. But some battles just aren’t worth the fight and I’m trying to keep in mind that she’s stressed out and been away from her own home for weeks now.

The good news is, other than the issue with all of his broken bones still being broken, Grandad is recovering nicely (but very slowly) and they hope they can move him into a nursing home down local to his home in the next two weeks for several weeks of rehab and therapy. Then my life will be my own again… I don’t mean that to sound as selfish as it does but hopefully you understand what I do mean.

Where I’m Going:
I am freaking going to Blizzcon! I can hardly believe it. Like most of you, I have been anxiously waiting for tickets to go on sale. I warned my mom in advance yesterday that I would be spending some time on the computer at 9pm (central time) because I needed to buy tickets for an event. I didn’t bother telling her what the event was; she would not have approved. When the time came and the button lit up that tickets were for sell, I clicked the button. I was approx. #6500 in queue and I could tell by how much stock decreased compared to how much the queue was decreasing, I wasn’t going to make it.

I was right, I didn’t make it. I was still at around #2400 when they sold out. Boo. But wait! I had been reading Twitter while waiting for my chance to buy tickets and I had seen that Vidyala was lucky enough to be at the front of the queue and had indeed snagged tickets. Then she mentioned she snagged extra tickets and thanks to the awesomeness of guild membership and online friendship, she sold me 2 of them. Also she’s just a darn sweet person.

I am so excited to be going and so ecstatic at having a chance like this to snag the tickets. Especially since I am taking a much needed camping trip this weekend to escape my current life of sitting in a hospital room most of my day. I won’t be home on Saturday, so last night was my one chance. Even though I haven’t been around at all lately, I have a great guild. I can’t wait to meet a chunk of them at Blizzcon this year!