Sunday, May 31, 2009

Drate Drate Drama's in the Hassa-bibble

So, the good news? It looks like Christopher may have inherited my sense of direction. Saturday we were on our way to the hospital and we were a couple blocks away (in a neighborhood he'd been in only once before) when I asked him who we were going to see, and he told me We were on our way to the hassabibble to see Drate Drate Drama (she's only his 1 great grandma, but he calls her Drate Drate) She'd have got a kick out of when he'd call her Great Grandma.

The Bad News is my Grandma is dying.

It's weird feeling. Bittersweet is the best way I can describe. Good in that she won't be suffering any longer, but bad that she's sick and I can't imagine how much this hurts my Dad.
It's been fast too. My Grandma is a Character. She got sick just over two weeks ago. She's 94, but doesn't look it, and really hasn't acted it, until the last 2 months. In that time, she's fallen more often, become more frail. Just a couple months ago my Dad moved her from the apartment in an assisted living neighborhood that she was in for the last 7 years (when she sold her 2 story house because the stairs were getting a bit much for her), to a studio that is attached to the assisted living neighborhood. She was taking care of herself. They would come escort her down to the cafeteria for meals, but that was it. My Dad would be by to clean a bit, do laundry, but she was self-medicating. Two weeks ago, my Dad and Stepmom were in Europe, and I got a call from the Nursing Staff about Grandma Neva. They'd found her in a state of dissarray, and wanted someone to come down to check on her. When we got there, they had gotten her dressed, and brought her a meal tray that she hadn't touched, and she was curled in a ball in her bed. She didn't recognize us. Though she was nice as pie to all who were there. We were worried about an overdose so we called 911, and the EMTs ran her over to St. Francis. Once we got there, they did a CT scan and X-ray, and found she had pneumonia. The next day she fell into such a deep sleep no one could wake her. They thought she might be coding, but it was just sleep. By the next day she could no longer walk to the restroom, so we thought it was a mini-stroke. A couple days later they diagnosed her with severe dementia. I caught a cold three days into her stay so I stayed away so as not to exacerbate her illness. My cousin Suzy took over, wonderful woman that she is! Daddy got back home, and they did a few more tests, she wasn't responding to the antibiotics, and the pneumonia got worse. Then last week she developed a secondary infection in her pleural wall, so they put a chest tube in. They had to move it around a bit to get the gook. Grandma had Good Days and Bad Days. The good days, she'd recognize Daddy, maybe even us, and be sweet to the staff. On the bad days, we got none of that. Then Friday she was giving Daddy the Glare. They tested and found she had a hemorrhagic stroke, a brain bleed, the kind that a 94 year old woman just doesn't recover from. So Friday night they moved Grandma to a hospice room, and pulled all the plugs except for a steady morphine drip. We went to say our Goodbyes Saturday. But Grandma wasn't there. She was sleeping so deeply, even Chris yelling didn't wake her. He was so sweet, not bothering her, just simply saying that Drate Drate Drama's Seeping.

Chris and Sam have been blessed by God with a Gift of being able to bring a bit of joy into sad situations and this one has been no different.

We may pop down to visit again, but I hope that she goes fast. Jesus was her Lord and Savior, so I know she has better places to be.

We've been having fun this weekend, I guess to counteract the sadness. We played at Olive Garden with Chris and his friend Bryn for dinner Friday night. Saturday night, on the spur of the moment, we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese with Chris's friend Emily to celebrate her last hurrah as an only child. Her Mommy's expecting twins next month! And Ice Cream... Oh my! So much Joy amongst the Sadness.

1 comments:

SuperSillyAunt said...

Love you guys. Sorry about your Grandma. Tell your dad I'm praying for him.