Thursday, August 17, 2006

Get Motivated! Everything Sucks!

I went to the famed Get Motivated! seminar yesterday with everyone from work. It was actually quite interesting.. The speakers included Steve Forbes, Zig Ziglar, Steve Spurrier, and Rudy Giuliani. They talked about goals (of course!), finances, investing, and interpersonal relationships, and the Presidency. Overall, I was glad I went because I am in dire need of motivation.

However, whatever cloud I had managed to climb onto dissipated like a match blasted by an economy sized fire extinguisher by afternoon. People started calling the second I turned my phone back on.. they wanted their grant paperwork NOW, etc. And there were dread rumors about my mother's condition, which unfortunately have been substantiated this morning.

The doctor called about an hour ago, and it has taken me this long to process everything in my confused, overworked, overwrought little brain. Mom is severely infected and they are going in to remove the joint completely tomorrow morning. Her blood count is dangerously low, and she isn't budging in her refusal to accept a life-saving blood transfusion, should the need arise. They're planning to put in an antibiotic implant and keep her on IV antibiotics for the duration.

What this amounts to is 3-4 months in an Arkansas nursing home after this surgery. Followed by starting all over with a completely new hip replacement. Followed by 8-12 weeks of recovery time from that operation. What that will mean is that next March she might be able to come home. She will have been there almost a year by then.

My uncle is going out there tomorrow to be with her, and I am leaving for San Francisco on Sunday for training. I have a feeling that this is never going to end well. My head hurts.

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