He’d make me laugh just to comfort me April 10, 2007
Posted by Keiran in : Family, Medical , add a commentFriday (April 6) marked 5 years since my dad’s death. Sometimes it still feels so recent, others it feels like he’s been gone for decades. Mom and I drove out to Marshall on Saturday to put flowers on his grave. We probably should have stopped to visit with family, but we got to town a lot later than usual, and we were both injured and just wanted to go there and back. (Ma tripped over one of the dogs on Friday night and landed on her right knee that she had already injured just @ 2 weeks before.)
Mom talked to Grandma the other night, and we’re going out to dinner with her this weekend. According to Grandma, my aunt Cookie is working on alienating her daughters. The strokes she had last year have made her very paranoid, and she keeps accusing my cousins of being after her money. My cousins held power of attorney for her, but she has been so paranoid about them stealing her money that she ended up taking it away from them and giving it to her step-son. I’m not so sure that’s a good choice. I don’t know her step-son at all, and he might very well be a good person; but then again he might not be. All I know about him is that he and his father have been estranged for a very long time, but as Ken’s Alzheimer’s has progressed, the son has come back around and made friendly again. Could be because he genuinely cares about his dad or it could be because he knows his dad is loaded and has one foot in the grave. Again, who knows – certainly not me, since I’ve never met him. But, my point in here is that the son now has Cookie’s power of attorney, and he’s only been in her life a couple of years. We can only hope for the best there. I’m sure we’ll get more details on all the family gossip when we go out to eat w/Grandma.
My leg is getting better, somewhat. Swelling has gone down considerably, but it still has a ways to go. My nerves are still going crazy from being stretched, but hopefully that should return to normal soon. The bruising is already starting to fade, so that’s a plus. It’s still HIGHLY sensitive, though.
My aunt November 30, 2006
Posted by Keiran in : Family , 2commentsMy grandma just called us. My aunt Cookie had another stroke today. No details yet. My cousin is attempting to fly down to San Antonio tonight, but with the weather, that’s going to be difficult since there are already a lot of cancelled flights. She is supposed to call my grandma when she gets more details on how Cookie is doing, then grandma will call us again.
Keep my aunt in your thoughts/prayers, please.
Gotta have faith, faith, faith November 13, 2006
Posted by Keiran in : Family, Miscellany , add a commentMom called grandma again at the end of last week, and got more details from her. Apparently — Cookie’s stroke happened back in October, and she forgot to tell us! And none of the cousins called us to tell us either. I also forgot to mention in the last post that, when my mom called her father at the end of October for his birthday, she found out that her mother had had a very minor stroke. Very very minor, but again — no one bothered to tell us. Nana said she didn’t tell mom about her stroke because “she didn’t want to worry her since it was nothing” and we’re so far away. And sure, it might not have been anything to worry about – but it would just be nice if people actually told us these things!
This weekend, mom and I went to an International Christmas Bazaar at a local church. They had tons of items that were hand-crafted in various third world countries, and all the money they earned from the sales went back to the artisians. They also had various charities there that so you could donate. Mom and I bought a flock of chicks for a family in need via the Heifer Project International. The Maua Methodist Hospital in Kenya was also represented at the Bazaar, and we donated to them as well. Mom paid for immunizations, and I purchased a round of antiretroviral treatments for a person with AIDS.
It looks like I’m going to get a new computer. I know that I could just replace the old dying hard drive – but I’m a little worried about transfering Windows over from one drive to another, especially since the bad sectors contain parts of the operating system. I’m also afraid I’d screw it up and end up with two unusuable drives. Getting a new computer might be a little more expensive than just a new hard drive, but it would be easier than trasnfering, plus I know that the system would be up-to-date. For this month at least. 
Right now I’m debating between a HP Pavilion a1630n Minitower and a Dell Dimension E521 desktop that I customized myself. There is about a $200 difference in the two (although, the price of the Dell does have warranty added on, and I’d have to buy that seperately for the HP, so the price difference isn’t really that much) and I’m somewhat torn between them.