On a happier note than my last entry:

My dad's finally getting out of the hospital tonight.

A month ago he had a knee-replacement surgery, but a mistake with the Ultradrive drill caused the femur to shatter the week before last, leaving him immobilized and horribly disappointed. For the first time in a decade he was able to walk without pain, and after a few weeks that was taken away from him.

We were all worried, too, that the femur was ruined and left unrepairable, and that we might have to get him a hip-replacement, despite his having a perfectly fine hip. (The femur had split lengthwise!)

Miraculously, though, last week the surgery was half as long as we expected and, despite the femur's horrible fracture, all the important parts for the surgery were inexplicably fine. So now he's coming home and we're all very overjoyed at this. He'll be in a bed and then in a wheelchair for some time, but he's expected to make a full recovery and due to some odd anatomical aspects of the surgery is likely to do better now than if the first surgery had gone well.

I'm still upset about my great grandma and my pet, but it seems we have some blessings here mixed in with the tragedies.

As you can see, though, with the failed first surgery and the deaths in the family, these last few weeks have been hard ones. I hope to God we have clear sailing from here.

And on another note-

Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah" (and John Cale's cover) can be very uplifting in a tragedy like this.