Health and Fandom

Well, I've not posted lately because things have been a bit hectic at home. My mom's suffering from acute aortic valve stenosis and it's getting worse. She's tiring out doing the slightest thing and she even needs to be hooked up to an oxygen machine when she sleeps now. On Monday she's going to see her cardiologist and talk about when she's going to get the open heart surgery she's going to need to get the issue fixed. It's kind of scary to think about what that means; getting her chest cracked open so they can get to her heart then stopping her heart so they can replace the valve. The whole situation also means I'm picking up a lot of the slack at home and wearing myself out a lot faster.

I've got a friend who can see I need some time away from home now and then to relax, but she doesn't seem to get how to accomplish that well. She keeps on suggesting things like driving to the nearest amusement park and spending a whole day there. I'd like to be able to do that, but I'd be worn out to the point I'd be days recovering. I got worn out after JAFAX and when I was there I was very careful about not doing more than I could handle, at an amusement park I'd be drug about all over and put onto so many rides I'd pass out from exhaustion. Her other grand idea is camping out for a few days, and in a tent no less. I wake up stiff and sore enough sleeping in a normal bed, if I'd camp out like that I'd be so sore by the time it was over it would be insane.

Now, with all this going on I'm getting stressed out to the point I'm twitchy all the time. I also am doing some major geeking out because of the nervousness. When I geek out I kind of use it as a coping method sometimes, it's kind of like a security blanket; hanging on to something familiar and welcoming, and when you establish you're a bit of a geek some actions that would be considered abnormal from most people become something accepted, or at least expected. This would be all well and good except one of my ways of geeking out involves collecting stuff. My bank account is starting to hurt because of this. I've spent money on ebay buying the whole set of Revolutionary Girl Utena (which I didn't expect to win, I put in a bid of less than half of what I've seen it go for most of the time and somehow won it), copies of the only two volumes of Eat-Man that Viz translated, and the last two volumes I needed of the Chuang Yi translation of Fruits Basket. Offline I bought three season of Beast Wars, some Tenchi Muyo, a season of Ruroni Kenshin, and some random volumes of manga. It's getting a little crazy, but it's kind of comforting when I collect stuff, and watching/reading it manages to calm my nerves, at least for a bit.

I guess it's kind of understandable, but sometimes I wish I had cheaper ways to cope with stuff like this.