About reading people's correspondance

My mother can't carry things. She can't cut, slice or dice; she can't do anything that could get her arm infected, since her operation removed lymph nodes as well as her breast. So now that she's organizing major remodelling in our Paris apartment, I've pitched in a little. We have a second floor which is half a very beautiful room, which used to be mine but will soon be my sister's since I'm moving to Lyon soon, and a large workshop where an artist friend of my mother's used to work. Now this space will be converted into a guest bathroom, bedroom, living room and the terrace will be refurbished as well. It's exciting to say the least, and I know my mother gets a lot of comfort out of the idea she is turning a new leaf after her parents' death.

Now a lot of this workshop was used to store shit. There is no other words. Piles, and piles, and piles of books we don't read or haven't reread in years (I'm talking in the hundreds here), dusty carpets and my father's stuff from the year my parents moved into this apartment together, in 1988. Yes, he hasn't opened these boxes in more than 20 years. Since he is still in the hospital, my mother and I decided to go through it so the workers could do the work next week.

My father is "an old father", being fifteen years older than my mother, and I haven't known him for most of his life. I'm always surprised when I see pictures of the young, handsome English chap and compare them mentally to the broken-down invalid I visit twice a week. I know they are the same person. It just doesn't feel that way.

Seeing all the boxes on the floor, all his life, now restricted to a hospital room, made me very sad. And when my mother started reading his private correspondance and getting angry at what she was finding, I was very depressed as well.

I don't like thinking about my things being opened after I'm gone, whether to the hospital or dead. I'm thinking about entrusting my web codes to a good friend so she can erase every account, every mail, every blog post. I never want my parents, family or friends to discover the random annoyance I may have felt at some point, the rants, the anger, the pissiness. People get on our nerves without negating the love we have for them.

Sometimes I'm at my boyfriend's apartment, and he's left his computer on. I could log on to Firefox and read his gmail account. Does he write about me sometimes? Does he complain? I read my ex's diary when I was convinced he was cheating on me and I regret this deeply. Not only did I violate his privacy, nothing I learned in there help me process the breakup or even his new relationship. All I read was bitterness, which is not illogical since the fellow was falling out of love with me and having to bear my unhappiness through cohabitation.

I can't lie. It can be tempting. But I won't.

Rom Com

I have a tradition, when my father goes to his usual hospital: I donate blood to the blood bank. It's there, I usually have to wait three quarters of an hour while he is prodded/massaged/scanned/tested, so it's not a huge thing, just a habit. Every three months, I give blood. It's not the most agreable thing in the world, but it's hardly painful, and it strikes me as so laughably easy to help others in this way...Just lie down, hold out your arm, and then go eat cakes and drink from juice boxes.

Anyway I went this afternoon. Last time my blood pressure was too low, so they wouldn't let me donate, but this time I was fine, so I went in and just talked to the ladies in the donor's room while the nurse set me up. We were all people with this kind of routine apparently, people who go to the hospital twice or three times a week, who know all the nurses and doctors and who have what we think of as a secret hospital life.

It feels like limbo: the hospital is airport-loungy in atmosphere. Potted palm trees, people pushing carts or drips, people taking cigarette breaks outside.

The nurse came to bandage my arm and gave me a juice box. The nice neighbour I had been chatting to giggled when I asked her if she came here often:
"That sounds like a terrible pickup line. We should write a romantic comedy about people meeting at a hospital when they give blood."
"Or while donating organs."
"Or while waking up from an anesthetic."
"Groggy love"
"Yes, that sounds amazing."

We shared bits of our secret hospital lives.

It was nice.

Hospitals blow

My mother was dreading chemo.
I had forbidden her to read online forums, because I am WAY too used to the rather depressing state of mind they can elicite in you. She read them anyway, and everyday brought a new tale of woe from anonymous 36 on the WORST CANCER STORY website.

We didn't even know what kind of treatment she was going to undertake, and I already knew more about chemo side-effects than others, since I saw both my grandparents go through with it.

My mother called me up elated on Friday. The biopsy was OK, and the doctors saw that the tumor was unresponsive to chemo, so they are going to go with an operation and then radiotherapy. My mother told me gleefully that her tumor was just like her.
"UH?"
"Well, it doesn't want to do chemo."
"OK."
"Also it likes drastic measures."
"Right."
"This tumor is just like me."

My father had a really bad spell a few days ago and had to be hospitalized in intensive care again. I'm going to see the doctors today during my lunch break, but reports differ: some people tell me he's doing oK, others seem to think he is very weak. Tracheotomy is an option. Anyway, my mother was telling me about her operation, which is in two weeks, and will require a lot of after-care. A nurse will help me at home, but it will be a lot of cooking, hand-holding etc. I have planned to have family and friends help, but still.

My mother and I chat together, thinking about how it will work out. Then she thoughtfully says:
"I do hope your father won't get worse and worse while I'm recuperating post-op. Then what will you do?"

I still miss my sister a lot. It would be so much funnier to have her around, since she is funny funny .

I may start reading forums for people who hate hospitals.

Perplexity

X gave me a list (at my request) of stuff I did wrong, so I have an idea of patterns of behaviour I may not be able to perceive on my own. I agreed pretty much with everything, so I'm relieved I'm not entirely blind to my shortcomings.
I would never presume to reciprocate, so I'll write my own here, for my eyes only :)

Cons:
_Sometimes needlessly cruel when frustrated by work or something else.
_Cannot/will not apply common rules of decorum and courtesy.
_Huge flirt. Ladies, do not go out with him if you cannot handle it.
_Bad at communicating when things go wrong.

Pros:
_Funny as hell, sexy as hell.
_Loves music.
_Great conversationalist.
_Great traveller.
_Great lover.
_Cuddler above all.


In less saracentric news, my father is quitting the medication which gives him renewed energy. Meaning he will once again become ill and depressed.

Wishing him well.

Back to my usual schedule of unbridled optimism and loving irony.