I've noticed that most people post a heads-up when they are going to be scarce on the forum, and I've neglected to do that, so I'll apologize after the fact instead. My participation in the forum has been very weak for the past six months. I remember doing a panicky off-topic post about two years ago on the topic of my mom's declining health. She had been showing early signs of dementia, and a trip to England to visit family seemed to break something in her brain. My dad had to cut the trip short because she went berserk -- hallucinations, delusions, aggression (some of which was directed at her beloved grandson) etc. It was frightening.
Fast-forward to now. She is in the last stage of dementia, which means she can no longer walk, feed herself, communicate in any meaningful way, or even sit upright without assistance. She sleeps 20 hours a day. She is on palliative care (although getting it was a fight; it's much easier to secure palliative care for cancer patients) and is finally back home with my dad, although with greatly increased support from the local health service. It has all happened so horrifyingly fast. I thought people lived with dementia for a decade or more, but apparently, that's not always the case.
So there's that. Then there has been my illustration program. It used to be that if your GPA was above 3.75 (mine was), you would automatically be admitted to 3rd year, but of course this year they changed that, which meant that right at the time my mom went into hospital, I had to learn how to use photoshop so I could put together a digital portfolio application. It took days. And I still had my normal courseload. And my husband was on the homestretch of a show, so was on six-day weeks. I'm so grateful that my kids have been happy and healthy. I think I would have fallen apart if anything had gone wrong with them!
Anyway, things are resolved for now, and against all expectation, I actually got a semester GPA of 4.2 (this is total bragging, but I can hardly believe it myself -- I'm so excited!) -- although I did stay up all night more times than I've ever done! And of course, now that I'm on a two-week break, I've got strep throat. I'm fine today, but it was three days of fever and chills and razor blades in my throat (and even one fainting spell! Scared the crap out of my husband) before I finally had the sense to go to the doctor. Antibiotics are a magical thing. It's just as well I didn't go to the Vancouver meet-up, because I fell ill the next day!
Anyway, if you read all this, thank you. I don't know what it is about writing it down that makes me feel better, but it does. I will try to participate more over the next while, and I'll try to remember to drop a note when I'm going to be scarce. And to all of you who are struggling with sick parents, I fully sympathize!
