05.30.06 Whirlwind!

Finding a new home...

Last week we left Seattle for Spain, and spent a kickass week hanging out with Angel and Marta at their place in Pozuelo, which is a suburb of Madrid. The kickass-osity also kicked my ass, and now I have a cold. Whatev, at least it’s not camphelobacter jejueni.

The plan was to spend this week finding a flat in Oxford. Following a 2 hour flight, a 70 minute bus ride and a 10 minute cab ride, we spent an evening walking around Oxford, and ate at the Eagle and Child which is a neat pub where a writing group called “The Inklings” used to meet, apparently JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis were members. Cool!

Today, we looked at two places, and found one that we liked! Our new home will be on the southern shore of the Thames river (for some reason also called the Isis when it goes through Oxford) at the southwest corner of the Folly Bridge, which was built in 1827, 24 years before the first settlers even arrived in Seattle. I found a website that claims there was a bridge at the site of Folly Bridge before 1085. Heavy.

Map of central Oxford. The red X shows our flat, the blue X shows my college (Merton) and the green X shows the Business School.

The arrow shows our balcony.

The neighbors across the street (river).

Another shot of the flat and the bridge.

Reba at the front door. Cute!

The place is a little rickety, the bridge traffic is a bit loud, and living there will be nowhere near as cushy as in our Ballard house, but it should keep us comfy enough for a year in Oxford. It has an extra bedroom for visiting friends, a decent living/dining room, a deck for Reba to do a little bit of gardening on, and a neat communal garden area and dock by the river’s edge for general lounging. And YES dad, it has running water, flush toilets, heating, washer/dryer, stove, etc.

We paid the deposit today, and will sign the papers Friday. We are one step closer to being gone gone gone.

SCARY!!!

05.03.06 Scary Days Ahead

And now, a bit on the darker side of moving overseas...

My mom has had a pretty major health problem all of her adult life: an Arterio-Venous Malformation or AVM in her brain. Some people get these in their leg, arm, whatever, but not mom. She had to get one in the brain. Brain AVMs present a nice little array of issues, including a risk of bleeding (fatal) and Epilepsy. Over the years, I've watched my mother have epileptic seizures ranging in severity from a momentary dizzy spell to a full-on, fall down, jaw chomping Grand Mall. A year ago, she had life threatening brain surgery to remove the AVM, which went quite well. For years, she experienced seizures of varying intensity, and after the surgery, had zero seizures for 6 months. Beginning 6 months ago, they returned at a rate of about 1 very mild seizure per month... not great, but totally liveable. This all changed yesterday when she had 3 fairly large seizures in a row. She works in a hospital, so the doctors started checking her out right away, and detected ~2CCs of blood near where the AVM had once been. This is BAD BAD BAD. She is now stable, has stopped bleeding, is conscious and has been seizure-free for >24 hours, so the immediate prospects look ok.

So, mom's in the hospital again and will get out in a few days, but I'm worried that she's going to get sicker or even die. This is morbid thinking, but it's certainly running through my brain. I feel bummed out and guilty that I may not be around her (since I'm moving to the UK for a number of years) for what could be the last years of her life, but then again, I have no way of knowing how this will turn out: she could be fine, or not, or have just about any outcome in between.

She and I have a great trip to Ireland and the UK planned for this summer, and she's never been there before even though it's where her family is from and she's always wanted to go. It's going to just be the two of us, will be totally awesome, and will be a great way for me to spend some serious quality time with my mom before I leave the country for a few years. Based on recent developments, I have no idea as to whether we'll actually be able to share this really cool experience or not.

I generally feel guilty about leaving my family and friends behind, but especially guilty regarding my mom, since the amount of time I have left with her seems to be getting smaller and smaller. All I can do is spend time with her now and hope that things get better, hope that we can do our trip, and hope that we can stay in touch and visit often when I move. My family has a fairly creepy/goofy way of dealing with this kind of stress, so we do odd things like take funny pictures when one of us is hurt. For example, when I got the CRAP beat out of me in college, and had a really bad shiner, she took a picture of the two of us and framed it for me. It's a BIG print. So, in kind, but also in an attempt to keep things lighthearted, my brothers and dad and I keep posing for pictures with her when she's lying in the hospital bed. I suppose that in some respect, we are implying through joking around that we think she's going to be fine and get out of the hospital for us to later hold the pictures over her head and make fun of her.

Yes, my family is weird.