So my dad was released from the nursing home yesterday. He’s doing quite a bit better. You couldn’t even really tell he had a stroke so that’s good. The bad is that it’s a reoccurring thing, he’ll have another one down the line and we’ll go through this again.
I’ve spent most of the day watching CNN and the coverage of Hurricane Katrina. As selfish as it sounds, it didn’t mean a lot to me over the past couple of days. My grand father and my aunt and uncle live in Louisiana outside of New Orleans but as far as we knew, they’d have sense enough to leave.
We didn’t hear anything all week until this morning. My aunt Ellen tracked down my aunt Susan and they’re okay. Unfortunately, my grandfather refused to leave the nursing home and made his new wife stay with him. He’s 92. He got in trouble the last hurricane for doing the same thing. As far as we know no one can get to the nursing home so god only knows.
I spent part of the day trying to hunt down the recovery sites to see if anyone has him on a list of survivors. Unfortunately, everything I try has been down, even Redcross.org. Watching CNN is making me crazy and part of me wants to get in the car and drive to the area and go find the old bastard. We don’t get along at all, and I hate everything he’s done to destroy the family, but damn, there’s got to be something to do to find him.
I know I can’t do that. The only thing I can do is help out here and keep my dad sane. He said essentially that it would be my grandfather’s own fault if he died for being a stubborn asshole when the police said to leave, but I do know he’ll be devastated if he does wind up dead.
I made a donation to relief support today via http://hypothermia.gamershardware.com/. They’re running a contest to win a computer if you donate, so I urge you to spend the $5 and take part. It’s from a great site and your money will go to a good cause. If the contest is closed, I urge you to go to redcross.org and make a donation. Any cent counts right now and it’s going to be a long road to recovery.
k9