Home!!

Michael is coming home today!! He's coming in on a 5:55pm plane. You just wouldn't believe how much rejoicing there is.

His father seems to be stable-ish, for now. There was an unfortunate incident yesterday. On Tuesday it appeared to have been established that they would give physical therapy 24-48 hours to work, and then discuss surgery. But yesterday at lunchtime, before the physical therapist had even come by, the surgeon came in and announced that he had scheduled surgery for today. Because, apparently, he has a funeral to go to tomorrow, and then it will be the holiday weekend. (I'm not sure how nakedly these scheduling difficulties were presented.)

The long and the short of it is that Michael's father refused to consent to surgery, and the surgeon got angry, and they had an argument. Now we are waiting for a second surgical opinion. In the meantime, Michael's father has been up and walking with a walker, and appears to be doing better. But either way, unless a dire emergency develops there won't be any surgery earlier than next week. So Michael is coming home.

At some point yesterday, Michael's father's internist pulled Michael out into the hall and told him that his father's heart is not doing well at all. His ejection fraction - the ability of his heart to pump out blood - is down to 20%. (Normal is about 60%). There doesn't seem to be much that they can do about this. It definitely makes any further surgery questionable - and that's on top of his already-compromised lungs, which suffered radiation damage during lung cancer treatment.

I'm so glad that Michael went down to Memphis. I'm glad that he got a chance to see his father and spend time with him while his father was conscious and aware, because with the next health crisis - and there will inevitably be one - there may not be that opportunity.

And I'm so, so glad that he's coming home now.

(no subject)

I hang out with really intelligent, clueful people. Which is excellent.

The problem is that it distorts my sense of my wider social environment, and then threads like this one come as a nasty surprise.

james_nicoll linked to the Con Anti-Harassment Project (Read their FAQ), which aims to encourage SF and media cons to develop clearly-articulated sexual harassment policies. And within, no kidding, three comments, we hit "lol, women who go to cons are too fat and ugly to harass."

And it goes on from there, although that's probably the pinnacle. The rest of the predictable responses just make me tired: cons will become a Kafkaesque nightmare in which anyone and anything can be threatened with punishment; aren't the poor defenseless accused the real victims; if women would only call the cops/respond with physical violence, there wouldn't be any problems and we wouldn't have to think about this stuff, so why have a con policy.

This is where I feel as though I should insert a brilliant incisive feminist rant that simultaneously heartens the embattled, illuminates the clueless, and crushes the assholes utterly. But you know what? I'm too tired and disgusted to manage it.

If a community is threatened by the very proposition that women's bodies are their own, and not to be infringed upon - if simply spelling out the right to be sexually left alone is seen as a dangerous impingment on community enjoyment - then what the fuck am I even doing there?