BronyCon and Bradel's Summer from Hell · 3:17pm Jul 6th, 2016
Hi all. Long time no blog post.
So BronyCon is coming up in a couple days. I've been looking forward to it pretty much all summer. Wanderer D invited me to join the Advanced Writing panel this year[1]. My first time getting invited onto a panel; I was pretty excited.
I headed home to spend the summer with my parents, as I usually do.
Then in mid-June my 96 year old grandfather fell down and cracked a rib. We thought there was a very good chance he was going to die. His doctors say he probably only has several months left anyway—his heart is in pretty bad shape. Honestly, my family and I are prepared for this. We've had him around a lot longer than we've had any right to have had him, we know he's been ready to die for years, and we've all pretty much made our peace with it. But that doesn't mean the situation is easy. We needed to be ready to travel up, either to help out or for a funeral, and we had no idea what time frame we were dealing with.
Well, my grandfather has done remarkably well since the fall. He was in the hospital for half a week, then in a nursing home for a couple days, but he's been back in his own home for a while now. He's still having a hard time, but he's doing about as well as anyone could hope. He has my grandmother and my uncle there to look after him and help him around.
Okay, so things are looking good.
Then last Thursday, my father starts having some difficulty breathing. It sticks around Friday and Saturday, and by Sunday he's having a very hard time just walking around the house. We take him to urgent care. They give him some antibiotics and tell him to go to the ER if he gets worse in the next day. Things seem to improve for a little while... but by the evening of July 4th, he's a real mess again. My mother and I are very worried. We wind up taking him to the ER on what's usually thought of as their busiest night of the year. But it turns out we navigated that really well, thanks to (seriously) one secret trick for fast, effective medical care (soon to appear on Buzzfeed).
Well, he's still over there a couple days later, but he's doing much better now. The doctors think he'd developed pneumonia, which is a diagnosis that seems pretty consistent with all our available data. He's on oxygen and resting, and generally pretty chipper. Hopefully he'll be coming home tomorrow.
Okay, so things are looking... okay at least.
Then last Monday when all this ER business is going down, I start feeling a tickle at the back of my throat. It's a sensation I recognize very well. It means I'm almost certainly getting sick. And I have gotten sick. I've been hanging around the house for the last two days trying to rest as much as possible.
Good news! The resting seems to be paying off. I still don't feel fantastic, but I think I feel well enough that I'm willing to risk the trip to BronyCon. Just be forewarned, y'all, that I may be a purveyor of the dreaded Con Crud. On the other hand, there's a good chance I'm just going to be resting in my hotel room (where I'll be staying with the inimitable horizon[2]) for the first 24 hours I'm on site, at least inasmuch as I'm able to do so. Hopefully I'll be pretty good by Friday evening.
This could still fall through. I need to make a flight at about 5:40am tomorrow morning to get to BronyCon. I could wake up feeling absolutely dreadful, and unable to fly. There could be sudden and serious complications with my father or my grandfather (and as it is I'm not going to get to be home when my father gets released from the hospital). Our home could be struck by a giant meteor. But if things stay on their current trajectory, I should be attending.
I'd really wanted to put up a new story for y'all before BronyCon went down, but there's just been too much going on in my life lately[3] for me to manage any useful work on pony stories. Hopefully I'll have a chance to fix that at BronyCon; you may see two new pieces very shortly thereafter.
Hope you're all doing well, and I look forward to seeing some of you soon (I hope)!
[1] Friday at 6:30pm in Hall of the Planets. Technically I'm supposed to discuss multipurpose writing—storytelling tools that let you build character, setting, plot, tone, and theme at the same time, without wasting a lot of words or eating up unforgivable amounts of your readers' time.
[2] Inimitable because he's totally not a changeling. Yeah, I know it doesn't quite work, but I'm sick.
[3] In addition to the above, I'm supposed to be doing a bunch of research for my thesis. This could be going better. Also, I seem to have acquired a girlfriend of whom I'm exceptionally fond, and she has a real talent for soaking up large blocks of my time. I can't say I really mind, though. It's nice to have one bright spot in this summer.
If you get me sick I'm writing a fic where your OC gets into an embarrassing situation.
On the other stuff, I'm sorry to hear about your family issues. I know how tough they can be, having gone through a few myself over the years. I wish the best for you and your family.
All at once down the male family line, though... I think you may have disturbed an ancient artifact and unleashed some kind of curse.
Whoa
. Its good to hear you're alive and whatnot, and I sincerely hope things start calming down!
I'm sure Academia was absolutely crushed
See you there.
~Skeeter The Lurker
See you there, hopefully.
See you there, please don't kill us all with your plague.
I've got all my fingers and toes crossed for you! (Dang, I just let it slip that I'm not a pony, didn't I?)
Oy Vey... I hope your father and grandfather have a speedy recovery.
If you make it, id love to talk hard sci-fi with you in
Ficwhores AnonymousQuills & Sofas.Con Crud be damned.
I look forward to meeting you!
I got sick right before Everfree Northwest, but I recovered by the time I got there, and I didn't hear of any post-con pandemic.
Besides, I hear Brazil is working on that this year.
Sorry to hear about all your problems, though.
Calamities are like cowards: They wait till your back is turned, then jump you all at once. Get well soon!
Claws crossed for the plane trip you'll be getting up for in a couple of hours! Here's hoping you're getting plenty of sleep on the way.
Ack. I'm happy to hear both your dad and grandad are doing better. Falling is nasty business when you're old, and seeing your parents lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a machine(s) is... disturbing, to say the very least.
Not sure whether you made the flight or not. If so, I'm looking forward to seeing you; if not, there's next year, wherein everyone will more than make sure you make up for missing this time. Hope you feel better.
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For all y'alls, I not only successfully navigated the flight, I am now in my room resting. Feel pretty decent already. I think I should be plenty good tomorrow.
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WOOOOOHOOOO.
~Skeeter The Lurker
4075758 yeah, you go ahead And convalesce.
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I saw Horizon and Skywriter.
Will be cool meeting you tommorrow!
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Looking forward to it! Sorry I didn't make it last night---I was really beat after dinner. On the plus side, I slept longer last night than I've slept in a week or two, and I ran out to CVS this morning and picked up a Nyquil/Dayquil pack, so I should be pretty set here.
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Fair enough. It was nice meeting you today. I look forward to hanging out with you more this weekend.
Wait. Were you at BronyCon? I don't remember seeing you there. Am... am I missing some of my memory?
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I think you are. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing you there. (I don't think we spent a lot of time together this year, but I'm confident we at least said hi a few times.)
4277120 Did you shave? I seem to remember that. I just don't remember it being BronyCon. It feels so strange to not really remember this.