The past six days.

This week has been absolutely bananas.

Something that happened on Monday frustrated me. I don't remember what it was, but I got home from work, went upstairs to eat my dinner and get on the computer, and I think I was a little grumpy. Then my mom called. Since they had had all that bad weather in Oklahoma, I was kind of worried that she was calling to tell me that we might have storms that night. I had just talked to her on my way home from work, so I figured that whatever reason she might have for calling, it wasn't a good one.  She said "hi. Don't get upset, but Pappaw's in the hospital." She said they thought he might have had a stroke, or mini-strokes or something, and that she and my dad might go up to the hospital to see him, depending on if my grandmother went up there. Then she said a little while later that they were indeed going up to the hospital because my Pappaw was just sitting in the emergency room by himself. He had apparently been there for several hours before my mom even found out about it- he told my Mimi not to tell anyone he was there, but Mimi called my mom anyway and told her. Anyway, mom and dad were there until after midnight, I think, and Pappaw was about to get a room and stay at the hospital overnight because he had indeed had a series of mini-strokes. I asked my facebook friends to be praying for him, and I also found out through facebook that Brandon's grandfather was also in the hospital (he has been in and out of the hospital since Christmas with various health problems and recurring pneumonia.) Of course, I didn't sleep very well that night (and hadn't slept well in several nights, because of some other stressful things going on right now.) The next morning I went over to my mom's house and we went to the hospital to visit both Pappaws. My Pappaw was having some tests done when we got there, so we talked with Mimi in his room for a bit before heading one floor below to visit Brandon's Pappaw. Mammaw Jones was very surprised to see me. I hope she enjoyed having some company for a little while. Then we went back upstairs to wait for my Pappaw. He was very cheery and had more energy than I have seen him have in an extremely long time- at least a year. He definitely didn't want to stay in the hospital any longer, but they had to monitor his heart because they thought it might have been throwing clots (he had heart surgery a while back because of some issues), and his blood is all messed up. BP too high, blood's too thick, etc. So he hoped to go home Wednesday. His blood counts still wouldn't get to where the doctors wanted them, though. They finally told him he could go home today, which is great! As far as I know, Brandon's Pappaw is still in the hospital. I haven't really been in contact with the Joneses much this week. After spending a good part of the day at the hospital on Tuesday, both mom and I were completely exhausted, and we didn't make it to Bible study that night, which was a bummer.

I tried to sit down and write a thankfulness post on Thursday, but I just couldn't come up with anything- other than being thankful that Pappaw went to the hospital when he did, because the doctors said the mini-strokes were a warning sign that a big one was on the way, and it would have killed him if he hadn't gone to the ER and gotten treatment when he did. The past week and a half has been emotionally exhausting for me and my family. I didn't forget about Thankful Thursday, I just couldn't put my feelings into words (and I honestly couldn't come up with a list of five things, which is awful.)

Friday was really bad, too. I had an incident with a patron who has been really awful to me for the past several weeks, and he really stepped over the line on Friday. I felt disgusted, creeped out, and upset for several hours at work. I did talk to my boss about it and he took some steps and ended up getting the guy banned for 30 days, which made me feel so much better, but the whole thing just made me terribly uneasy. I cried for a long time last night, out of frustration and icky feelings.

I am glad to say, though, that today was a lot better. I was so worried it wouldn't be, but everything turned out fine. My husband worked all day, so I went shopping with my mom. She is really tired and we didn't go to quite all the places we had planned, but we did go to Target and I got some baby shower and adoption shower gifts (that I am really excited about.) We picked up lunch, and they didn't give me my food (we should have checked the bag, but still) and I called the manager and he is sending a gift card to make up for it. I wrote to all my kids this afternoon with the online letter writing tool, and watched some funny TV and napped. When I got back to my house, I had three really great letters waiting for me, and I'm looking forward to sharing them for Mail Call Monday! One of the letters had some extra special stuff included. : )

I hope everyone has a good long weekend. I know some people feel a little weird "celebrating" something called Memorial Day, and I do think that some of the original meaning has fallen away as people focus more on having time off work and stuff, but it's still good to have some extra time to rest. I'm very fortunate to have an extra long weekend, just because I'm usually off on Tuesdays and don't work until Wednesday nights, anyway. Hopefully I will be able to chill out some, and also get some stuff done around my house!