I've spent the majority of the past week at home on Long Island looking after my mother since she broke her leg last sunday. It's proven to be a major learning experience for my family, but especially for myself I feel. The week began with the general stress of the situation, and I was dealing with it by myself from my dorm room in the city. My father called me monday evening to ask me to come back home for a couple of days to help out, which I was willing to do, but wished that I didn't have to, since I had made plans this week that might have had to be canceled.
            After two days of helping my mother go about her daily routine and taking her to the hospital for a CT Scan, I was ready to leave on thursday, but as soon as I'd boarded the bus back to Manhattan, I was overwhelmed by a feeling that I was doing the wrong thing, and that I needed to stay in Sag Harbor with my family and put my own plans aside. It wasn't until I had reached Manhattan that I called to apologize for leaving, and I felt like I had abandoned my family in a time of uncertainty. I am leaving out some personal details, but I assure you it was a very emotional day for everyone. Within two hours I was on another bus heading back home, and my conscience felt cleaner having done the right thing.
             Maybe I've grown a lot more from this than I realize, but either way it was good for me to come home, because my mother has been having issues other than the leg. She's been on percocet as a painkiller, and has had a bad physical reaction to it, we believe. She's currently in the hospital after experiencing tremendous abdominal pain, but there's no sign that it's anything very serious.
             I had a poor experience with percocet, as well, although it was prescribed for me after having three wisdom teeth taken out. It turns out, it is not uncommon for patients to have a dysphoric emotional reaction to it, which my mother and I both had. Hers was an extreme sadness, while mine was more of easily triggered aggression, although I was reduced to crying as well at one point, after which I took the rest of the percocet left in my pill bottle and threw it away. After she and I have both had those experiences from the regular prescription dosages, we cannot fathom why people would take it recreationally.