Long Story Short

Squeaky Liberation Day, as EZ has so neatly phrased it, actually happened a few hours early.

Remember the "shooting pains" and "exploding" internal organs? Well, we ended up spending the wee hours of Monday morning in the emergency room of Hospital Not Even Remotely Near Here, Which She Had To Go To For Reasons Which Were Never Made Clear. After a couple of hours of watching a Lifetime movie on the waiting-room screen, I was set free and told by Tim to go home and get some rest--I had an eye appointment at 10 the next morning, with an hour to hour-fifteen commute to get there.

Tim stayed with Squeaky. At first they said it was her gallbladder, but the test results nixed that; then they said her appendix, which (from what little I know of medicine) was pretty much anatomically impossible, judging from where the pain was, though my mom says sometimes it travels; then they said her white blood cell count was very high, and thought maybe it was her pancreas...

...and then they sent her home and told her not to eat spicy foods. No antibiotics, nothin'--they just sent her home (which in this case was her dad's place, thank all the gods) and told her to rest. From what Tim says, she apparently feels a little better, but still--who sees a diagnosis of "elevated white cell count" and says "too many burritos"?? Tim wasn't very impressed with the hospital either, but what can you do??

Anyway, she's there. And Tim and I had a very long talk last night, and I'm hopeful that he got the point. We shall see--but the important thing is, the Catastrophe is now Squeak-less. And it's wonderful!

I don't hate the kid. I really, truly don't. I feel sorry for her, which isn't the best position from which to approach a fellow human being--she's survived this long, after all, and she doesn't need my pity!--but her life so far has been so awful that I can't HELP but feel bad. I don't dislike her.

But I DO dislike her presence, and what it does to the dynamic of the house, and what it does to my routine, and my peace and quiet, and my normal way of living, and...You get the point. If she would just sit down somewhere and be quiet for an hour or two at a time, it would go a long way towards ameliorating my annoyance. But it's not going to happen--and I understand she can't really help it, but that doesn't make it any better. In fact, it makes it WORSE, because not only am I annoyed, but I also feel GUILTY for feeling annoyed, knowing that it's not really her FAULT that I'm annoyed.

Which is why it is such a priceless relief to have her not be here anymore.