jekyllandhyde

I was driving with my dad through downtown Philadelphia tonight (and was quite impressed with how he's learned to be a "city driver") and we started talking about my mom's Hepatitus C. Apparently it's a lot more serious than I (and many other members of our family) was lead to believe. She'll be undergoing some sort of experimental treatment near the end of January (a lot like chemotherapy, which she only had to have a small dose of when she had breast cancer a few years ago) and she's really dreading it. There's a very real possibility that she could die in a few years from prolonged symptoms of the disease. That I wasn't expecting to hear.

It's weird; she's had breast cancer and now Hep C, yet her identical twin sister hasn't had any of these health problems. I think it might go back to the days my mom worked in a hospital as a nurse, before she returned to academia and got her Ph.D. In any event, that was a fun conversation to have on Christmas Eve. Apparently my mom didn't want me or anyone else to worry, but my dad told me because he wanted to be honest, and I think he knew I'd be able to handle it better than other members of the family. All in all, I'm glad he did; I'd rather know.

In other news, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for grad schools, even though I have some more applications to turn in once I get back home. Of course I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for a long time because it'll take forever for them to get back to me on whether or not I was accepted. I used to imagine which school I'd like to go to; now that I've actually started applying (and now that I'm currently going through the requisite "my work sucks, how could I ever think this was good, I won't be able to fool anybody anymore" phrase), I think I'll be happy if any of the 15 schools I'm applying for accept me.

Fun times.