I just got home from my grandfather's house in Ohio. We headed down on the 26th, planning to return on Thursday the 28th. This daylog covers Dec. 26-30.
The trip down took 8 hours, and it wasn't until we got there that we discovered that my grandfather had gone to the hospital for a test but had had to stay for fairly urgent surgery, since one of his carotid arteries was nearly blocked. My parents and I were very worried, and went to visit him Wednesday afternoon; he seemed happy enough, but I was still stressed. The surgeon made a mistake - she told us there was a "chance" of a stroke and then, 2 sentences later, happened to mention that the chance was only 1 or 2 percent. You can imagine my relief!
The operation was Thursday morning fairly early, and my parents told me I shouldn't go since I would just be bored. I woke up at seven anyhow, afraid that if something happened they wouldn't wake me (as if it would make any difference whether I was awake, but I wasn't being very rational at the time). I spent the morning dozing and reading about 150 pages of The Eye of the World. It was weird - I was going cold-turkey from caffeine, and the book seemed more real than reality, which was broken when I fell asleep during the less exciting chapters of the book.
I thank my lucky stars that everything went okay with the operation, and my grandfather got home yesterday. I had already had dinner, but I sat there for most of his meal - it was a relief to see him at home at last! My mother had to call the parents of one of my friends, so I talked with my friend at the end and worked out what everyone's plans for New Year's were. Luckily, my friend Amanda was having a party, so I didn't have to plan my own from 500 miles away!
Today (Saturday), I rode home again - 2 days later than originally planned. I slept and gazed out the window pretty much all the way home. Note: being the only vegetarian in a family on the road isn't fun - lunch was Burger King fries, 2 orders of mozarella sticks and an ice tea. Odd how you have to specifically look for unsweetened ice tea these days.
I just got home about 3 hours ago, had dinner and wrote this daylog. Maybe I should have kept a paper-and-pencil journal and typed it up when I got home - it would be nice if I could remember the way I felt in more detail. Oh well - live and learn.