First days in America

Whew... It has certainly been a whirlwind in the past few days. Hopefully I'll get a post on the Lunar New Year finished up soon, but for now I want to give everyone a brief update.

I found out on Friday morning that my grandma was having some health problems that were fairly serious. After a day and a night of praying and thinking, my parents and I decided that it would be a good idea for me to cancel my planned trip to China and come back home. We made that decision around 11 am on Saturday morning, and my flight left Incheon International Airport at 6:45 pm on Saturday. It was a pretty crazy morning as I tried to get all of my China plans cancelled and get the ticket for America and pack and such.

I made it to the airport on time and caught a flight to Detroit. The flight was pretty uneventful, but it was really really long. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who has a nearly impossible time sleeping on a plane and there weren't any good movies. Sad day. I landed in Detroit and it had started snowing. I was really really hoping that there wouldn't be any problems with my flight to Cincinnati. It ended up being a little bit delayed, but I landed in Cincinnati around 11:30pm on Saturday. With the time zones factored in, Saturday lasted for 38 hours. I think I can officially say it was the longest day of my life thus far ;)

My friends Kristen and Nate were waiting for me at the airport. We made a brief stop at Wal Mart to pick up essential things like cold medicine and a pre-paid cell phone. By the time I made it back to their house in Lawrenceburg, I'd been awake (minus a few dozing sorts of catnaps) for just under 55 hours, but my body was absolutely convinced that it was the middle of the afternoon and didn't want to sleep. It was most unfortunate.

I was talking with some friends on facebook during my layover in Detroit and discovered that one of my good friends was getting baptized in Lafayette on Sunday. I decided that I would be completely crazy and drive up to Lafayette for church. So, I woke up around 6:15 on Sunday morning and drove North. Thankfully, the roads were good and there wasn't much of a problem with snow. I made it up there and surprised pretty much everyone, since nobody really knew I was back.

All this time, I was starting to feel more and more miserable and sick. Monday morning I woke up and I was having trouble breathing, my chest hurt, I had a nasty cough and I was pretty dizzy. I called my dad and we decided that I should come back down to Indianapolis to see my parent's family doctor. Thankfully, I still have insurance in America. I went to the doctor and went through all of my symptoms and he checked me over. It turned out that I had a bad cold, a severe case of sleep deprivation, and an ear infection in my right ear. Out of all of the places that hurt, my right ear was definitely not one of them. So I don't know how that happened, but there we have it.

Last night I went to the hospital to see my grandma. She is still pretty weak and still looks pretty jaundiced. She was awake and able to talk a little bit when I was there. It seems that all of her bloodwork numbers are moving in the right direction, so I'm thankful for that!

Lastly, my dad and sister and I went to donatos for dinner. It was wonderful to have real pizza again! There was plenty of cheese, plenty of sauce, and no corn or mayo on the pizza! All in all, it is good to be back in America again. I'm still a little jet lagged. I'm able to stay up until around 11ish, but I still wake up around 4. I've been able to go back to sleep, but I haven't been able to sleep past 7 yet. Hopefully it will all be better in a few days!!