I was planning on posting about my very lovely birthday weekend, but this week has overtaken it - and not in a good way. Ariel's work has been a little slow, so I have taken on extra shifts to help out a good friend of mine at work - she has needed to go on leave as her husband dies of cancer. Then Matcha, our six month old kitten got attacked by a neighbor's cat and ended up with an infection and had to stay the night at the vets. I was more than a little suprised how traumatizing it was to have a sick kitten.
Today, my Dad got an official diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease. It was not a huge suprise - about four months ago, I noticed he had a tremor in his right hand (combined with general slowness, and just a sense that something was off) and told him that I was concerned that he had Parkinsons. Parkinsons is a brain disease with a wide range of severity, but most people degenerate until they are no longer able to move on their own within ten years. There are definitely worse diseases to get, especially for an almost seventy year old man, but it is a bad diagnosis. I haven't totally absorbed the reality of it, and I don't think my Dad has either. Everyone pretty much knows these days will come and all I can do is try and be there and be helpful. Someday in the future, I will probably have a better handle on it all.