I feel like I'm living in an episode of "Curb your Enthusiasm"

[Clintonista2]

Has anyone ever seen that episode where Larry David's mother dies, and nobody tells him because he was working on a film, and they didn't want to "disturb" him? I live 700 miles away from home, and my family has a real problem with keeping me informed. One example of this is going home for xmas to find my sister 4 months pregnant. Why nobody bothered to tell me, I really can't say. Anyways, apparently a family member nearly died, and nobody bothered to tell me. I sent out an email asking how everybody was doing, and here is the response I got:

Everyone's fine. Grandpa gave us a scare a couple weeks ago, but I
didn't
want to tell you because I knew you'd get upset. But he's fine now.
Right
after Christmas he started complaining about his legs hurting. The
doctor
thought it was because he had switched brands of his cholesterol
medication,
but after going off them there was no improvement -- he just got worse
and
worse very quickly. It got to the point where he was barely able to
shuffle
his way across a room. The doctor scheduled him for a CAT scan, but
before
the date arrived, Grandpa decided he couldn't take the pain anymore and
headed to emergency. Good thing, because they did an immediate CAT
scan as
well as an MRI, and found that his spinal column had shrunk (due to
age) to
the point where it was pressing against the spinal cord itself.
Apparently
this can be very serious and can cause permanent loss of bowel and
bladder
control, loss of movement of the hands and legs, etc. The doctors said
that
the situation appeared rather extreme, and were surprised he wasn't
experiencing anything more than the leg pain. He was kept overnight
and
operated on the next day. It was a 5-hour operation....very delicate
surgery because one false move could do all kinds of damage when you're
messing around the spinal column. The operation was a success, but
then
they had trouble stabilizing his heart afterwards. For 2 days it was
all
over the map -- anywheres from 100 to 150 beats per minute, when his
normal
is around 60. But they finally got it stabilized, and after 5 days in
the
hospital he was released. He seems perfectly back to normal now.


So now I'm wondering whether I'm living in an episode of Curb :mad::mad::mad:

[Skittles]

1. I would suggest

you send out an email at least weekly asking how everybody is doing :o

[harmonicon]

2. my family is just like that

I remember, it was a few years ago, I called home, and talked to my dad, and I think I asked where mom was, and was told that she was with my sister in the hospital, who had apparently just had a serious operation. Good stuff, huh?

One of my friends' favourite (though my least favourite - ok, it kind of makes me laugh now) examples of this behavior is that when I was 18 and a senior in high school, I went away for a day on a class trip. Apparently, or so I've been able to deduce, at some time on this day, our dog died - the dog we'd had since I was 3 or 4 years old. No one told me - ever. The dog had been pretty sick, and I noticed either that night or the next morning that she wasn't in her doghouse in the garage (where she was on the morning I left for the trip and said goodbye to her, like I did every morning), which wasn't too alarming, because she'd had some overnight vet stays a few times leading up to this. Days went by and the dog didn't come home. Eventually the food and water dishes were packed up. The dog dying was never mentioned.

[alarimer]

3. My family is like that too!

I never knew, for example, that my great grandfather killed himself. My mom had a fall last December and bruised up her whole face and didn't tell anyone. She didn't even go to the doctor to see if she had a concussion. The fall was that bad. She hit her face on the vanity or something.

I am still pissed.