April 19, 2010

Numb

Yesterday, my grandmother had a stroke.

At 3:30 p.m. my grandfather called my cell phone and I didn't hear it ring. At 3:45 he called again but I didn't hear this one either. I did hear my voice mail alert and immediately checked it. I had asked my grandmother to call me over the weekend to let me know what kind of dinner she'd like me to bring her this week. I figured that was why she was calling. When there was no voice mail, I worried a bit. I checked my messages at home and there was a call from them there too. But there was no message, only silence.

I called the house and there was no answer. I hung up and figured my grandmother didn't want to bother me. I was very wrong.

When I arrived home after running errands all day long with the family, my sister called. She said my grandmother fell. That wasn't the entire story.

A few minutes later, I got my Mom on the phone. She was at my grandmother's house. The ambulance was there too because she had called them when she arrived. My grandmother had been in the kitchen and felt dizzy. Not wanting to fall and break a bone like she did a few weeks ago, she sat down and lowered herself to the floor. My grandfather eventually heard her make a noise. It's unclear what time this happened, but we know it happened at least, before 3:30. Once on the floor, she was unable to move.

He didn't want her on the floor so he dragged her into the dining room, then onto a chair and then he dragged that chair across the room so he could move her onto a rocking chair. She sat there, slumped into the radiator until my Mom arrived. My grandfather hadn't been clear about how bad she was when he called my Mom.

I was the first to arrive at the hospital, as the ambulance pulled up, and I signed the consent form for her to receive treatment. I am usually pretty good at holding myself together but when I saw her I lost it. Her face was drawn and her eyes struggled to focus. She was talking a bit and I could understand everything she was saying, but her left leg and her left arm were limp.

Over the next few hours, they did a CAT scan, blood work, and family members began arriving. The monitors beeped uncontrollably: irregular heartbeat, low O2 level and a bruise on her shoulder and gash on her arm that made me absolutely sick. I held her hand and she squeezed it tightly. She seemed to be struggling just to focus on my face and stay awake. I told her to rest.

We took turns being by her bedside and eventually, as the hours wore on, it was only me, my Mom and my sister there. She opened her eyes and seemed more alert and she said the words that brought us all to tears once again. . . "I want to die. Why can't I just die?"

They gave her a tetanus shot for the scrape on her arm, an IV antibiotic because they were concerned about pneumonia and around 11 p.m. she was moved to the stroke unit.

I was told this morning that she had a bad night, but that she is sitting in a chair today, the weakness on her left side still prominent.

My Mom and I have prayed many times that when it's her time, God takes her in her sleep and that she doesn't have to suffer. She hates hospitals and being poked and prodded and yet she is there for the third time in two months.

On the way home from the hospital last night, the song "Comfortably Numb" came on and it made me cry. Why can't she be comfortable? Why did it have to be like this? Why did this happen now when no one in my family is prepared to let her go? There is nothing comfortable about this; it's hard and painful and it sucks more than I ever imagined it could.

We know she can't go home anymore and now lives must be changed, lifestyles adjusted and reevaluated. It's going to be a rough couple of weeks and my family needs all the prayers it can get.

The least of my worries today is my own doctor's appointment later this afternoon.