ladyiapetus | Ya gotta take a little good with a little bad...

Well, today's just been an interesting day of ups and downs for me.

Let's see...for starters, this weekend is Family Weekend at my college, which means family members of the students can come down, sit in on their child's classes, participate in various activities and watch the football game. Some people even went so far as to bring their pets with them. So anyway, I'm sitting at my computer doing something or other when I see something enter the room out of the corner of my eye. I turn in my chair...

...and see a black Great Dane (or Dane puppy, or Dane-mix) in the room. It walks right up to me and sniffs my arm a couple times, just looking at me, tail wagging. It didn't last long, because about thirty seconds later the dog's owner called her and dragged her into her quad once the dog had left my room. It wasn't until I was on my way back to the dorm from Scrubway (my brother's affectionate name for Subway) that I began to wonder if it wasn't coincidence that the dog that paid me a visit was black with a white spot on its chest, just like Pepper (although this dog had a large white spot; Pepper's was rather small).

I got to meet my roommate's parents today as well. They're pretty cool people, very friendly. They weren't afraid to joke around with me or include me in their conversations.

Things went slightly downhill when, almost predictably, the fire alarm goes off. It certainly was interesting, with all the parents there for that wondering what the hell was going on, while us veterans were taking it all in stride. On my way out I ran into this little girl, about two or three years old, who was trying to go the opposite way, and crying because she was scared of the alarm. I gently guided her away from the door and started to guide her outside and another girl said something to her; I left her there, assuming that this girl was her sister or aunt or mother or something, and headed outside. I didn't see her outside, and I hope that she went out on the other side of the dorm; I'd hate to think I was responsible for her getting lost or something.

Things were pretty much uneventful for the rest of the night, when things went from slightly bad to bad. My mom IMed me to chat for a little while. My dad had gone up to Madison for the day, because an uncle of mine was up there to have surgery. He had a blood clot in his brain, and the doctors were going to attempt an angioplasty to clear it up. Then they found out that the clot had hardened, so they were going to do a bypass on Monday. Then I find out from my mother that the surgery has been nixed; the doctors are going to give my uncle some medicine to, "improve his quality of life."

Is it just me, or does that sound like a death sentence?

"Improve his quality of life." Well excuse my saying so, but it sounds like the good doctors have just gone and given up on him. Yes, the surgery is risky. Yes, I suppose technology could improve some and could help later. But I'm sorry, saying that he's getting medicine to "improve his quality of life" sounds like he's just being sent home to die.

The last member of my family that happened to was my grandfather four years ago. He had cancer of the lung and brain, far more or just as serious as a blood clot, and in the end he was sent home to die.

I don't think my family wants to go through that again, thank you very much.

-Lady Iapetus