The Stress of Surviving

Fig and her two children stayed at my place for a few nights after Uncle Georgio was taken to the hospital. It was cramped and crowded, but we made it work while she figured out what to do next. Uncle Georgio awoke from his comotosed state after a day in the hospital, so by the time Fig found out where he was and went to see him, he was conscious. He had taken too many sleeping pills with alcohol and it had knocked him out in a severe way. When Fig was visiting him at his hospital room, he wasn't speaking very well. His words were slurring and stuttering making it difficult to understand him. He had written a note to Fig, even though his handwriting wasn't much better, explaining that he was not going to go to Virginia, and that he had decided to give her the house to raise the kids in. Fig was a mixture of relieved and overwhelmed at the same time. Happy that she didn't have to move, yet uncertain of how to deal with a damaged house and an unwell Uncle.

After we had talked to some of our friends and discovered that everyone we knew was going through something difficult, we were hard pressed at coming up with a better plan than what we were already doing. There were people who had no electricity, there were people still at motels or hotels because their house had been flooded or damaged, and there were people who couldn't even go to work for construction and vehicles issues.

It was a very sad and stressful time, yet we still counted our blessings as everyone we knew and loved had survived while we listened to the news anchors tell stories of those less fortunate.

School was closed temporarily, but Fig knew that the four of us in my tiny apartment was just too much. So she asked around and made different arrangements. Mario was going to stay with Helen, Anya was going to stay with me, and Fig was going to stay with Dee, until their house was ready for them to return to. Fig had thought that her children were going to be more upset or protest, but Mario was actually happy about it, and Anya knew it would be alright since Fig and I spend so much time together anyway.

The hospital nurses and doctors were monitoring Uncle Georgio's health carefully, and had informed Fig that upon his release he would need an assigned caretaker. Fig had to decide if she could manage being his official caretaker, or if she could stand the thought of him being sent to a nursing home. It was too much to think about when the house was still soaked and she did not know how long it would be before they could go home. Though Georgio was not paralyzed, his speech and hand coordination would not be as strong as before.