Clark S. Cox

My "vacation" (the reason for the scare quotes will become apparent) has been two weeks of chaos and stress.

My maternal grandmother (my last remaining grandparent) is fading fast, and probably won't see another Christmas. She is living with my parents and needs a sitter during the day. She is unable to walk on her own, and can only feed herself half of the time. She has good days and bad, but even on her best days, she seems a pale shadow of the woman I remember. This was made, to me, all the more explicit considering that I hadn't seen her since last December.

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer last month and had to have a double mastectomy three days before Christmas. Luckily, she was out of the hospital on Christmas Eve, but she's been in bed most of the time since then, and her new shape really seems to bother her; not to mention the fact that she cannot pick up her grandson.

And then, to make matters worse, my son was bitten yesterday by one of my in-laws' dogs. Clark attempted to take some of the Michael's food while he was eating, and Michael would have none of it. So, he reacted as any dog would to another dog attempting to steal food—he snapped at him. The problem, of course, being that Clark is not another dog. My mother-in-law grabbed Clark, and went upstairs to inspect his wounds, and Elizabeth woke me up, understandably hysterical.

We spent the entire day in the ER while they stitched up Clark's face. He had three large lacerations underneath his left eye, and two smaller wounds underneath his right jaw. He was very close to having lost an eye, or, worse yet, having punctured his right carotid artery.

So, to any of my friends in Louisville that I haven't yet seen, I wanted you to know that I haven't been ignoring you without cause :)

Edited to add:

Tags: little clark, vacation
Current Location: Louisville
Current Mood: numb

Advertisement