This morning at 12:30 my grandma died. I visited her last week when she was in the hospital and she was recovering well. I brought her her favorite shake - banana. She wanted to drink it but it was too thick… I don’t know if she ever got to finish it. She seemed to be tired. Tired of being sick. As she put it, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” I think she gave up. She was a fighter. She went through so much the past few years. It started when she fell and hit her head because she accidentally took both of the day’s doses at once which made her lose her balance. The doctors didn’t expect her to survive that, let alone the surgery, but she fully recovered. They said she was a miracle. One doctor even said point blank, “That woman in there should be dead.” We even convinced her to go to rehab — she has always been stubborn and hates to depend on anyone. When she was in rehab it seemed like we might have convinced her to move into assisted living. She liked being around people her age. She was a lot more cheerful. When she was at home she was lethargic and seemed depressed. She wasn’t active at all. Occasionally she would have moments where she’d say, “Let’s go shopping!” It was a rare occasion. My aunt lived with her. She had her own problems, dealing with depression, social anxiety and who knows what else. The negative energy did not help my grandmother in the least. I can’t lay the blame on my aunt though because if my grandma wanted my aunt to leave, she would have told her. That’s how she was. We’d visit her at the hospital and when she’d had enough of people being around her she’d say, “didn’t you say you had to be somewhere?” She had a dry sense of humor. She never wanted people to feel sorry for her. She thought she was a burden on us whenever she had to go into the hospital. Even at home she didn’t want company all the time. She liked to be alone. But then, I don’t really know if that’s truly what she wanted. I always think maybe she just felt like she was being a burden or we would be bored… and that she really did like company. I’ll never know. I wish I spent more time with her. The last time I saw her was last week. They had moved her from ICU a second time because she had what they think was a panic attack — something she’s had to deal with the past few years. They thought it might have been a heart attack. The doctors said they couldn’t tell for sure by looking at the EKG but it appeared that the heart attack that it showed was a previous one they already knew about. The whole reason she was in the hospital this time around is because she was having stroke-like symptoms. Numbness on one side of her body. They determined she had had a minor one and put her in ICU for about a week. When she was improving, they moved her upstairs. Things looked bright. But I could see the last time I saw her that things were different about her. Almost as if she had given up hope. She didn’t want to be at the hospital anymore. She was tired of her aging body. Her mind was all there. She was the same woman she was 50 years ago but her body wasn’t keeping up. That was excruciating for her. On top of all the poking and prodding, she had to have dye put into her bloodstream for a CT scan but they ended up blowing her vein. This required another surgery after which she caught mersa. After that was under control she developed shingles. I know this is because of the conditions of the hospital. You don’t just develop these things out of nowhere. We had to wear gloves, robes and masks whenever we saw her. I always kissed her on the forehead. I wanted to hug her but I was always afraid I would bump one of the several IVs going into her left arm. The right one couldn’t receive intravenous fluids because she had had a mastectomy years before. So on Tuesday she was released to McCrite’s for rehabilitation. This means that she wasn’t hooked up to any sort of monitoring device. This morning at around midnight she asked for pain medicine. We don’t know why she needed pain medicine but I have a feeling neither did the nurses. They just gave her a pill and left her. When they came back 30 minutes later, she wasn’t breathing. The paramedics said she had a heart attack and breathing complications. I don’t know how they can arrive at this all of a sudden since they couldn’t even tell if the one on her EKG from 2 weeks ago was recent or not. I really think it is McCrite’s inattentiveness. I think if they had had her hooked up to heart monitors she would be alive. But like I told my mom, my grandma was tired of it all. If she wanted to live, she would still be here. She was tired of aging. She was a feisty woman full of youth and energy and she lost it all in a short period of time. I used to dance with her when I was a kid. I would stand on her feet and we’d waltz around her living room to whatever was playing on my grandparents’ country western radio station. I have a photograph of a day I still remember. I must have been seven or so. I was sick and lying on her couch with my eyes closed and my grandma was sitting next to me stroking my forehead. I remember the days when she would have friends over and she and my grandpa would play harmonica and they’d all play cards and drink beer with tomato juice. I still use phrases I’ve only heard my grandma use. ”Goody goody gumdrops”, “no biggie” and “dooflicky”. No biggie. That’s what she’d say to this. She’s probably playing cards with Leona somewhere. I’d like to think so. I don’t think there’s a heaven but I see why people believe in it so deeply. It’s comforting to think that they are somewhere else without pain. I miss my grandma.
