Chaos Attraction

Three Days Left

2007-01-17, 10:59 a.m.

Here's the current Schedule O' Death.

* Friday at 10 a.m.: take him off the ventilator
* Monday: appointment with religious grief counselor
* Tuesday sometime will be a private burial
* After that...presumably we go to Disneyland for most of the rest of the week.
* Memorial service won't be held until February 3.

I am not terribly thriled at waiting for so long on the memorial service ("you mean I have to come BACK?! Again?!"), but Mom wants to do it at a time where most people can come. Meanwhile I'm thinking, "Fuck, I only brought an outfit for the memorial service, I'm not wearing it twice for a burial as well."

The meeting with the hospice caseworker and the doctor went on. I don't have too much to say about that. I was just sitting around feeling nauseous, mostly. My aunt and uncle did start in on me again about how I should be grieving right, and how I should talk to the caseworker about this. After I said, "Yes, I want you to leave the room for that" (hah, I can't believe I said that, but they gave me the opening), the caseworker agreed with me. I said, "Uh, if you're around them again, could you tell them that?" She also said I should stand up to them.

The thing with that though is well, I tried to say no politely. I tried to say it while crying. They didn't respect either of those. I fear the only thing that MIGHT (hah) work is to have a screaming fit. Unfortunately, I know from experience that having a screaming fit is the one thing that has a 50/50 chance of working on any relative of mine...and given the situation, I really don't want to go that far, you know? Especially on Friday. So, I am stumped on that.

After the meeting, the aunt and uncle went off to eat, Mom went to see Dad, and I went to go hide in the car so they wouldn't come back and drag me in. (The feeding was shut off at this point, I don't think Mom watched it.) When they came back, they spotted me in the car and said hi and how did talking to Penny go, and I said "Uh, it went fine. I felt nauseous, so I went out to the car." They let it go there. Said bye on their way out, that was about it. Mom has supposedly talked to them for me, I don't know if that'll take or not. I guess we find out Friday.

Mom's friend recommended a counselor he knows that works by him, so we went to go see him. He's a RELIGIOUS, as in born-again, counselor. She loved him. She actually said, "THAT WAS AWESOME!" He said some of the same things you did, essentially, such as "You're not killing him, God is doing that," etc. I am glad for her for finding someone she hit it off with. And to be fair, he does seem like a nice person. He appreciated my bluntness, he said.

Though it does wig me out that she is seeing someone who is a stated born-again, and quotes the Bible a lot. In my experience, those are the people I usually want to AVOID like the plague. And being a person who ah, doesn't want to be an official member of any religion, even of a religion I rather like...well, that's why those people freak me out. I am The Enemy and all that :P

So I guess it bugs me that the guy she hit it off with isn't a secular shrink, or one of the grief counselor folks at hospice in Oakland, but someone who I think thinks that I'm going to hell because my answer to the "are you born again" question was something like, "Well, uh, Jesus is a nice person and all that, he seems sensible and I like that, but I don't get the whole "he's his own father thing," that makes no sense..." (to which he laughed, said he didn't get it either, and likened it to the various stages of water.), "but uh, I'm mad at God at the moment, for obvious reasons..." Okay, he was very polite about it, like "I'm sure you'll get over it eventually." But still, it worries me anyway.

But...what can I do. She liked him a lot, and I really wanted her to see someone she liked. We see him again Monday.

Oh, btw, this was hilarious: the hospice caseworker thought I was 15 years old. The religious counselor though I was 34. (THIRTY-FOUR?!?! That's the closest anyone's come to my age in YEARS. That's the first time someone has guessed me as over 18 without my saying "Hint, I'm over 18" EVER) In the SAME DAY. *boggle* Rather hilarious.

And after all of that, we went to the movies. A good end to the day.

Don't know how today is going to go yet. Mom is talking about going to AAA to plan the Disneyland trip, trying to figure out how to dress Dad, and is making disturbing noises about having me clean again :P I guess we won't just be sitting there on 24-7 deathwatch for the next two days after all.


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