i hate mondays

I check my email this morning and I have a new email from my mom, subject 'eerie'. She says this morning she received a blank email from one of my close friends -- which wouldn't have been strange except it was from the email address of my friend Amber -- who died 4 years ago of leukemia. My mom was pretty spooked by it -- because no one in the school system has those initials or last name and would have that email address (it was her work email) -- she checked their directory -- and nope. No one with her last name is employed in the entire school system anymore. How weird is that? And that out of all the people in that office, MY mom would be the one to get that email? Not someone who had no connection whatsoever to my friend ... but My mom. She's a supervisor in the county school system and unfortunately they are always getting computer viruses (which is due, in my opinion, to the fact that school systems rarely pay network people very well and hence they get poorly qualified people). So ... I am positive that its just a result of some freaky virus -- but what a coincidence. If I had gotten the email I think I would have had to just go home for the day. Even with 4 years between her death and now, there are just some things you never truly get over or understand.

So that was how my day started .... and I've been thinking about my friend a lot today so its been one of those sad days. :(

Then my brother IMs me and we proceed to have an hour and a half conversation about my dad, whose back has been progressively getting worse over the past 26 years. He herniated a disk a year or so before I was born, had major back surgery, and ever since then has had back problems -- but its always been sporadic and able to be handled with 3 or 4 ibuprofens. However, over the past 2 months, his back has just gotten worse and worse. He's been going to doctors pretty regularly and finally they ordered an MRI. (I am unsure as to why an MRI had never been done before :duh: but ... thats water under the bridge now.) He's been diagnosed with spinal stenosis -- which is basically the narrowing of the spinal column (often caused by herniated disks) and causes severe irritation of the spinal nerves. Evidently my dad's spinal column is about one third the size of what it should be. He's in pain all the time now. My brother immed me so we could basically double-team my parents and convince them to go see a neurologist. The doctor who diagnosed him didn't really give him any options for treatment other than surgery -- which is always given as an absolute last resort. So -- my brother was asking me questions about the diagnosis and what kind of doctor he would need to see and who might take the most aggressive approach towards helping our dad. I think Mark was pretty upset because Mom and Dad went over to their new house (they closed on Friday) Saturday, and Dad couldn't even walk around the house. He laid down on the living room floor while the rest of them looked around. My Dad is so active and healthy otherwise -- it's hard to see him so incapacitated by this pain. :headache:

I'm just ready to go home and not have to think for a little while.