Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Treatment

Yesterday I took my grandma to her first chemo treatment. It went really well, despite it taking an eternity & them bruising the crap out of her hand trying to draw blood.

After the treatment was over I took her to my job to wait for my cousin & her daughter to pick her up & take her to our hometown so I didn't have to drive all the way back there (an hour). She told me, "Andrew, I'll always remember you were the one who was with me for my first treatment." That's right!

On Christmas, EVERYONE is supposed to be coming over. This will be the first time in years that this will happen. Even though there will be one less person (my grandpa), there will be more babies. My grandmother. All 5 of her kids (living) kids. The 3 in-laws. All 10 grandkids. 5 of their spouses. And all 10 great-grandkids. In a doublewide trailer. It's going to be a glorious trainwreck. Since everyone will be there & considering the circumstances, we're going to take some family pictures. That'll be interesting. The last family picture we had done was just the grandkids when I was the baby of the family (back in 1987).

I promise to post some different material in the next few days. I think I know what my next post is going to be, but I've been debating about whether or not I want to actually write it because of how embarrassing it is.


Saturday, December 17, 2011

Long Road Ahead

As mentioned in my vlog, my grandmother has a brain tumor. Obviously, that sucks donkey dick. We got the biopsy results back yesterday & we found out that the tumor is at Stage 3 & is malignant. The prognosis is that she has a 50% chance of living a year with the chemo & radiation, & if she is in the survival part of the 50% there's a 25% chance she'll live an extra year. The medicine they're going to use for her is $10,000 per dose. Seriously. What the crap. Luckily she has insurance, but regardless of that she still has a 20% co-pay.

After losing my grandfather (her husband) back in March, this has been a very bad year for our family. We were all kind of dreading Christmas because of how...weird it would be with him gone (though he usually sat back & made smart-ass comments). So on top of that, we all have to deal with the fact that there is a very good chance this is her last Christmas, too.

She's so wobbly now that a lot of us are taking turns staying with her at night in case she falls. Sunday night is my turn, which means I may not get to watch the "Survivor" finale (go Sophie!). Then on Monday morning I'm taking her to Duke to her first chemo session. That's awesome.


Her with Baby Me. My grandfather is in the chair behind us.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

That Time I Turned 25 & Assaulted Someone

So remember a while back when I said that I would post about my 25th birthday that occurred in July? Well, now it's finally time to make that happen.

To start off with, I woke up to a bazillion Facebook notifications from people that don't normally talk to me, as is their wont. Then Madison came over & gave me these awesome shoes.

My feet aren't actually that big.

Then we went to the place where we get our piercings done. She got the back of her neck pierced for the 3rd time (long story) & I finally got an industrial piercing like I've wanted for an eternity.

Success!

After that, I had dinner with my small group from church. That was pretty uneventful, as was the barhopping afterwards. I was photographed all sweaty & gross with Katie.

Gross!

After we took that picture, Katie & I went downstairs to get some more drinks & unfortunately missed this redneck girl giving some guy a lap dance. My church friends decided that it was time to hightail it out of there, so off we went. Then this guy from my group, Brad (who was really drunk) became very belligerent & yelling at passersby (on top of making a lot of sexist & misogynistic comments). I was trying to calm him down & get him to shut up. Eventually he left (drunk. We tried to stop him but he wouldn't not).

But Brad isn't done! You see, he had seen Madison on my Facebook & had been messaging her. I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of terrible at being able to tell whether or not people are a good fit for one another, so I just told her to give him a chance; however, she was already grossed out by him before they met because of some of the texts he had sent. Anyway, the night after my birthday I had a party with the people from work & anyone else who wanted to come. Well, since Madison was going to be there Brad wanted to be there as well. He showed up at the restaurant & would hardly talk to anyone. And when he did, he was incredibly judgmental & kind of an ass. Now, I'm not going to say that any of the rest of us handled the situation very well, but needless to say he left before the party resumed at my place.

Once we got to my place, everyone proceeded to drink a bit. I was good for a while, until close to the end when people were starting to leave & that asshole Sam got me to start doing shots (I never do shots). After having had about 4 beers previously, the 4 to 5 Malibu shots kind of sent me over the edge.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, when I get really...drinky...I begin shedding clothes. First was my shirt...


That's Kristin. She's important in a minute.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending...) there are no pictures of me once I got into my underwear. Anyway, for some reason or another I went up to my room & as I was coming back down the stairs I fell. Luckily I didn't go head over ass or anything like that. I just fell & kind of...slid down. Anyway, when I reached the bottom, Kristin, who was also not in her most lucid mind, threw a cookie at me. This cookie hit me in the mouth & gosh darn it, it hurt! I wasn't going to stand for that so I chucked my phone at her. Surprisingly, drunk me has better aim than sober me because the next thing I see is Kristin's head flying back as my phone made contact with her face.

As was seen in one of the first pictures on here, my phone is really big (a Droid). This next picture is the aftermath...

Kristin, with ice on her lip & blood on the floor next to her, waving at the camera.

After that, I called it a night & went upstairs. Then the stomachy feeling started & I took my pillow & a blanket in with me to the bathroom, where I proceeded to puke off & on for about an hour, all the while having "Back to Black" by Amy Winehouse stuck in my head. I was upset about her dying earlier that day, so having that particular song & her dead voice stuck in my head while I was already sick just made it worse.

After that, I realized that I needed to get my shit together. I've only been really drunk once since then, but I've made a concerted effort to cut back on the drinking. I'm 25 years old & don't need to be throwing shit at people.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Trajectory

In the past few days, I've been reading the book "Just Kids" by singer/songwriter Patti Smith. It chronicles her life as an emerging artist in New York during the late 1960's & beyond, as well as her relationship/then friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (spoiler alert! He was a gay!). My favorite genre to read is memoir, so I'm eating this shit up like ice cream.



On the positive/negative side, aside from entertaining me, it has made me question my own existence on this earth. Am I here to make a difference? What am I supposed to do with my time here? This contemplation, coupled with the stuff I discussed in my vlog, leave me feeling quite burdened & overwhelmed.

Well, regardless of that, I must get ready for work. As I always say, "Caribou Coffee: We're Up Before God." My other slogan is, "Caribou Coffee: Eh, Close Enough."