Whoa, haven't posted for a few days. My grandfather went home from the hospital yesterday, and on schedule, and is doing quite well. RIght after I left last week, the docs figured out that his confused state of mind was partly due to dehydration! So from the next day onwards, apparently, he's been himself. Probably bored out of his mind, too, ( Read more... )

I just came from a graduation party thrown by/for a couple of my students from this past year. It was fun and very sweet, and good for catching up with some former students and a teacher friend I don't see much ( Read more... )

I’m on the plane now, and wishing I had a DVD with me to watch. I brought two DVDs from Netflix with me on the trip, but I’ve already watched them and mailed them back. This is actually pretty cool: I brought them from Honolulu, and dropped in the mail in Texas. I’m not sure where they were delivered to, but Netflix got them in a couple of days ( Read more... )

Now I’m sitting in the airport lounge in San Antonio, waiting to board my flight for DFW. There’s a whole cluster of army troops on my flight, wearing that desert camouflage that looks like a poorly resolved digital photo. I’m curious about how someone figured out that would work better than the older designs. Most of the troops look like they ( Read more... )

This afternoon I sorted through some stuff that I’ve been storing at my grandparents’ place (it’s mostly coming back to Hawaii with me). I found a shoebox crammed full of old letters, postcards, birthday cards, printouts of emails, etc. I read through a bunch of it. WEIRD...A lot of what I read was from college days, long enough ago that I feel ( Read more... )

Yesterday I drove my dad to the airport, 1 hour 15 minutes away, in the Cadillac. Man, that is a sweet freeway cruiser. It just glides, and even gets over 25 mpg as long as you have cruise control on ( Read more... )

A doctor was here a little while ago checking on Mac. (Everything’s going well.) We told him about Mac’s disorientation of a couple of days ago, and the doc said that was completely normal for patients over 70. “It’s the rule rather than the exception.” He called it hospital psychosis, and told us that hospitals spend billions of dollars a year ( Read more... )

Mac is now eating lunch, with Grandma hovering around him every moment, unwrapping cookies, cutting tomatoes and opening salad dressing packets. Grandma is spending 12+ hours a day in her husband’s room, very attentively. Quite impressive devotion. She really springs into action when the meals arrive ( Read more... )

My grandfather Mac is now sitting in a high chair. He can put some weight on his new hip, and he can straighten his leg to some extent. This is apparently excellent progress the day after hip replacement surgery -- the physical therapist is delighted. At his age, Mac is not too strong, but stubbornness will get you through a lot. So he was able ( Read more... )

My 88-year-old grandfather Mac got a new right hip today. “Total Hip” is apparently the nursing staff vernacular for total hip replacement. The surgeon was great, the nurses are great, and everything went very smoothly. Nevertheless, Mac is definitely down for a fairly long count. When he got to his recovery room, almost two hours after coming ( Read more... )