2001-05-06 - 10:08 p.m.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Because Harry went to a Cinco de Mayo party with some friends the previous night he was moving a little more slowly today. He was feeling less sick, but more hung over.

While I was waiting for him to turn up, I gave a call to the phone number I had for Janis. The phone rang, then an answering machine picked up. I started to leave a message for Janis, when she herself got on the line.

I mildly chastised her for not getting in touch with us personally. She told me that she got in at 5AM on Saturday morning so we probably would not have wanted to get a call from her then. She admitted that she had only been to see Dad for 20 minutes on Saturday, and she didn't really see the point in spending much time with him. She had no idea what to say to him.

While I was talking to her the doorbell rang - it was Harry. When I mentioned this to Janis, she made a hasty excuse then hung up. Obviously she wasn't interested in speaking to Harry.

While Harry, Lily and I were walking to the hospital, I relayed some of this conversation to him and he got indignant. Janis has a hard time thinking of things to say to Dad?? Welcome to the club! Well, it was nice to know that Harry enjoyed visiting Dad about as much as I did.

When we got up to the Intensive Care Unit, we found Dad out of bed and seated in a chair. Apparently he was well enough so that he was going to be moved out of the ICU and into one of the regular hospital rooms. A nurse was bustling around, getting him ready to go.

Although she said Dad was doing better, he didn't look like he was to me. In fact, even though he was obviously awake and conscious, he was barely there. His mouth was hanging open like he didn’t have the strength to close it. When we asked him a question, he'd look at us and nod, but he didn't seem to have the strength to actually talk.

After that the three of us walked back to the apartment and then went out for lunch, at the same diner we went to yesterday. Lily and Harry were ripping on me again with the diner thing. I think I need to either find some better places to eat or find some better comebacks when they start harassing me.

When were hanging out back at the Hamster Palace, one annoying little incident occurred. The Planetarion IRC window was open and Harry happened to notice that my IRC nick was "Uberhamster." He thought it was pretty funny and was needling me about it. Well, it is a kind of a silly name for a grown person, but more importantly if Harry decides to do a Google search or something on "Uberhamster" he almost certainly will find this journal. And thus do people find journals that people don't want them to find. I stand by everything I have said here but it would sure be awkward. However, I think the odds of him actually finding this diary are slight - my brother only uses the internet for business and seems to have little interest in exploring it for fun.

A few hours after Harry left for New York I got a phone call from the hospital. Dad had a relapse and they had to put the breathing tube back in and take him back up to the ICU. This was not good news, but not exactly a surprise since he looked so out of it this afternoon.

I called Harry at home to tell him, and I could hear him kicking himself for going back down to New York. I tried to make him feel better by saying that it didn't look that serious, and I think I got him calmed down. Harry is going to be up again next weekend, so there is no point to him driving all the way back up here before that.

It is kind of frustrating though, Dad is back to where he was when he was admitted to the hospital on Friday.