17.2.09

I'm rusted and weathered/Barely holding together

My aunt Jan (aunt isn't capitalised because I've always just called her Jan) is dying of leukemia, and last week she took a very, very sudden turn for the worse. My mom and dad and siblings were planning to leave on Saturday and come back Tuesday (the kids wouldn't be missing school because of the President's Day weekend), but they left on Thursday instead, hoping to make it in time to say goodbye. Well, Jan's a tough old woman, and as far as I know she hasn't died yet, though by Thursday afternoon her kids were thinking it was over for good. Anyway, on Saturday I got a phone call just as I was getting ready to go out with Andrew for Valentine's. It's Dad, saying, "I have some bad news."
My mind jumps to the obvious, that Jan died. I say so, and Dad said no, though that's imminent. So I asked him what it was, and he said, "Mom's in the hospital."
O.O I start to freak out a little bit.
Apparently, she missed two steps on Saturday morning going down some stairs, landed wrong, and broke both ankles. One was a clean, simple break, but the other...she completely shattered her other ankle, so she had to go into surgery to have it fixed, and she was in so much pain and so nauseated from everything that she's been in the hospital since she fell. Which was Saturday, and today's Tuesday, and she's not getting discharged until tomorrow.
And like I said, I don't think Jan has died yet, which I find somehow ironic to the whole situation.
To make this increasingly long story short, this kind of thing does not happen infrequently. Not the falling-and-breaking-both-ankles bit, but the whole nasty accident/illness/etc/etc sort of thing happening to unpleasantly prolong a trip that was not made for pleasant reasons to begin with.
And you thought my bad luck was just me...

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