Friday 4/27, Dad called me at work and told me that if I wanted to come down and say goodbye to Grandpa that sooner was better than later. So I ended up leaving work around 1:30 and heading down to Madigan Hospital at Fort Lewis. It took me about an hour and a half and when I got to the visitor center I didn’t have my updated insurance card so I couldn’t get my car in and my insurance company couldn’t email it so I started freaking out and crying because I’d just come all this way for nothing and that I won’t even get to see Grandpa. I called Dad and he told me to calm down and that Kima would come pick me up since she had a pass. I regained my composure and waited for Kima to get there, got me a visitor pass and headed back to the hospital. Grandpa is not doing well and it was so hard seeing him hooked up to the machines and his chest convulsing as air is being forced into his lungs. I didn’t know what to do so I just sat and looked at him for a long time, studying his face, arms, half-open eyes and heaving chest. Two neurologists came in to do tests so I took that opportunity to go get some water since I had started to feel lightheaded. Dad went with me and asked if I was ok, I wasn’t, but I didn’t want to start bawling there so I kept my shit together. How did this happen? No one expected this…and now he’s almost dead? It’s awful and everyone is scrambling and searching for answers. We came back in as the tests were still being performed and I kept having to sit down on the floor because I was about to keel over. It’s like when I get anxiety attacks at concerts and my vision starts to go and all this pressure builds in my head. Their assessment wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t jam-packed full of hope either. We decided to say goodbye and go home so I told him to get better and hoped he could hear me. Kima took Dad and me back to my car and we drove home without too much traffic. After dropping Dad off I cried a little in my car on the way home. It was after 6 by the time I got back and I was exhausted so I fed the cat and went up to my room to watch James Bond and organize all my bills and shit from the last two months. Dad called for an update and reminded me that every day is a gift and that no one gets out alive, so appreciate it now while you’ve got it. Then Mom called and I haven’t talked to her at all since this all happened and I know she’s having a hard time with it and has apparently been crying consistently since the news hit. She sounded ok and we joked about Grandpa’s stuff in his office and how she told him that unless he woke up that she was going to keep going through his all of it and cleaning things out. After the movie I cleaned up a little downstairs in preparation for Dad to come back on Saturday and for Kassie to arrive as well. Auntie Lauryn is also coming as everyone is preparing for Grandpa to die. I cried for a long time in the shower before climbing into bed.

Thursday 4/26, I got up early to see Dad off and we had some muffins for breakfast so I decided to just go into work early. At 4:30 as I was preparing to leave Dad (Alan) called and told me there was an emergency and Grandpa had just had a major heart attack and “it doesn’t look good” so he asked me to go over to the house to be with Jake and they were heading down to the hospital. I stopped at the jewelers on the way and picked up my ring then went over. Both Jake and I were confused as to why Dad wanted me over there but I hung out until it was time to take him to soccer practice at BCC. I went home after that and talked to both Dads multiple times for updates had some dinner and talked to Susan. I watched some tv, showered and updated.

Wednesday 4/25, I went down to U-Village straight from work and ended up randomly meeting Kay-See at Anthro then we headed over to our baking class together. We were early and got good seats and looked at all of the wonderful kitchen things to buy. We perused the list of goodies we’d be making and they included: strawberry muffins, cornbread muffins with scallions, bacon and parmesan, an apple and cinnamon coffeecake, popovers and lastly a ginger and lime pound cake, which was surprisingly good considering I don’t really like ginger or lime. It was a lot of fun even though I was terrified to get up in front of the class to help, but luckily it was just girls and one old guy, so the most intimidating person was the teacher who we all thought initially was gay, but isn’t. And when he started talking food and flavor combinations we were all fanning ourselves because it was totally hot. The class ran long, 10:00, so I decided to blow off the Kaiser Chiefs show entirely and head home to where Dad was waiting up for me. I was really disappointed to miss the show because I’ve wanted to see them FOREVER and I paid for the f-ing ticket so I was bummed, but also totally drained. At home I fed Dad some of the coffeecake and he approved and we sat chatting and looking at all of the pictures I have up. Around 11:00 we both hit the hay and I stayed up for a while reading.

Tuesday 4/24, I stayed late after work for some overtime then headed home where I did some cleaning in preparation for Dad coming the next day, which included vacuuming the stairs, sweeping the other stairs, cleaning that fucking litter box and other minor little things. The place looked great! I ate some dinner, showered and got ready to go to bowling. I had quite a late start and didn’t leave the house until 7:45. When I got there it was cosmic bowling which was kind of fun and I totally glowed because I was wearing a white shirt. It was a fun night but somewhat uneventful, save for the karaoke as people bowled. Brandon and I discussed his brilliant plan of having strip club / bowling alley…I’m totally in. I started joking with Nikki about punching people in their necks, and I’d be like “You know what that girl’s got coming!” and he’s like “Neck punch!” oh yeah. Glorious. Kay-See won the award for Best Improved Average and got a little trophy, complete with skirt. Kay-See and I were looking at pictures and this weird guy kept coming over to look and was making odd conversation and Kay-See was like “Get this guy away from me!” though I initially thought she knew him. The boys were trying to get us to go to karaoke but Kay-See wasn’t interested and I would have gone if she were but I was also glad to be leaving early to rest up for the next day’s events. So we’re all congregated outside talking about vomit stories and mother in law stories when the weird guy comes over again and is like, “My mom married the town priest then she starts cheating on him with another priest who’s now my stepdad” and Jesse’s like “I think I saw a porn that started out like this” and we all started laughing so hard because this story was so weird and he just cut in, so we were all sketched out and looking at each other nervously so the joke totally cracked us up. He kept going but it’s not important, just know he was really fucking bizarre. I drove home and went to bed.