Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Saturday, Dec. 24, 2005 - 11:09 p.m.

I hope you guys are having a great Christmas/Hanukkah/Yule.

I spent this evening wrapping presents and watching whatever happened to strike my fancy on television. Thank you, Dish Network.

Yesterday, I finished most of my shopping (not all, sadly), and then today I tried to take advantage of lower prices to pick up some stuff that I need for myself, but I have discovered that these days, if you wait until Christmas Eve, all the cool stuff is gone. I still got 2 fleece pullovers, which I need. And since they were like the last two and had been stomped on by careless shoppers, I got them dirt cheap. Dirt cheap is always good, so while careless people generally piss me off, in this case, I thank whatever loser walked all over the merchandise. I also got 4 longsleeve t-shirts to go with the 3 I found on sale for $6.50 earlier in the week, so now I'm set for warmer office garb. I just wish I could lose the spare tire I currently have sitting stubbornly around my waist. It's gross, and I hate it.

Hey, you guys, guess what!?! My favorite bad 80s fashion trend is making a comeback - while in the mall yesterday, I saw a girl with - I kid you not - her jeans stuffed into her white slouchy socks! Like, totally tubular and awesome!

My brother called me at 9:40 tonight to tell me my father had just been hospitalized. I am remarkably untouched by the news. In fact, the conversation went something like this:

Tom: "Hey, uh, I need to tell you that Dad had to be take to the hospital tonight..."
Me: (thinking) Huh; I guess that news report about Christmas being the busiest time for heart attacks was right. Wow.
Tom: "...he went in for a gall stone, but turns out it's something more serious."
Me: Oh. Not a heart attack. Huh.
Tom: "Do you have a pen? I'll give you all the information."
Me: "Sure, hold on." Of course he's not dying. What the hell was I thinking? "Okay, got it; go."

My brother gives me the 411 for the hospital and what else he knows about the situation, and then we hang up. I then think about how my father, despite his horrendous health, is never going to die. He will just continue in increasingly poor health, harrassing the rest of us ceaselessly and haranguing his much beleaguered wife, my stepmother (whom he constantly refers to as "your mother" in conversations with me), for at least the next 20 years. The man does NOT take care of himself in the slightest, weighs at least 500 pounds and probably more, has already suffered a heart attack (when I was in 9th grade), 2 blood clots - the last a huge one in his arm that also hospitalized his ass, and now this. I talked to my brother again an hour or so later, and it turns out he seems to have bruised his small intestine and is bleeding into his belly, but because of the coumatin he's on, they can't operate, so he's currently getting transfusions of cold blood. Oh, and fluids, because apparently the man refuses to drink water and was also extremely dehydrated. Both his white and red blood cell counts are elevated, and the doctor is rather flumoxed. So there you have it. And I find I really have no feelings on the matter whatsoever, other than a little irritation that I'm going to have to talk to him tomorrow, which will entail a super whammy of guilt and manipulation, because he will play the in-the-hospital-on-Christmas-nobody-appreciates-me-now-you-HAVE-to-come-see-me card to the max, and unfortunately, I have not yet gotten to the point where I can play the oh-yeah-guess-again-you-abusive-sonuvabitch-asshole trump card. He already called my already freaked out stepmother from his hospital bed, demanding that she bring all his medications to the hospital by 8am tomorrow, and when she tried to point out that a) you're in a hospital bed where they are trying to thicken your blood, so taking blood thinners is really pretty irresponsible, and b) your doctor will give you whatever medication you need, he lashed into her, told her she was stupid, and hung up on her.

Yeah. I really want to talk to that. I called my mom, instead, and we had a lovely chat, mother to daughter.

So that's my Christmas Eve. Mostly not as bad as it sounds. A bit lonely, perhaps, but nothing too horrible, and don't worry about sending me condolences about my dad, because seriously, it's not a thing. But I hope the rest of you have family members who remain in wonderfully good health now and throught the coming year.

Peace out,
Katie

ps. and that you all get kickass presents. :)

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Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
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In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
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