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The next day we returned to the emergency
room and was able to meet with a very young doctor after a mercifully short
wait. The doctor had authorized for Grandma to be moved into a private
room in the hospital. Mom checked with the admissions desk and the hospital
administrators said that Grandma insurance forms were going through without
a hitch. They did tell us one interesting fact; Grandma had lied about
her age. She was 94, not 93. Mom and I thought it was very funny and it
was a great relief to laugh for a change. Somewhere in the 1940s Grandma
decided she needed to loose a year and Mom had never known about it.
We visited Grandma in her room and she was awake. She was mostly back
to the woman I knew so well. She complained endlessly about the indignities
she had suffered at the hands of the nurse Nazis. They wouldn't feed her
either, which surprised me. I found out later this was a very good thing.
It was obvious that the oxygen was giving her a tremendous amount of
energy. She was channeling all that energy into a never ending complaint
filled oratory. By the time she got up to full spate, I was considering
cranking the oxygen off. But Mom councilled patience.
Grandma made it clear that she was ready to go home. We broke the news
to her, she would be staying at the hospital. She recoiled in shock and
surprise. Grandma's attitude towards hospitals were the same as Mom's:
hospitals are were people go to die.
Grandma began wailing that this was the end. Mom and I did our best
to comfort her. After an hour they came to take her away for tests and
to move her to her new room. Mom and I promised we would come back the
next day.
When we left the hospital it was snowing, which isn't that big of a
deal to my Mom and I; we come from up north. To Memphians, the sight of
white flakes induces terror and mayhem. As soon as the first snow of winter
hits, everyone jams the grocery stores, trying to stock up and provisions
like a paranoid Mormon on the day before the apocalypse. Mom, with frayed
nerves, negotiated traffic as best she could.
I had Mom drop me off at my place so I could pack. I knew she was in
no condition to be by herself and I prepared for an extended stay.
For the first week Mom and I would visit Grandma every day. Every time
I walked into Grandma's room there would be a new tube attached to her
and a new monitor placed by her side. Grandma was being assimilated by
the Borg, but very, very slowly.
I am thankful that Mom, Grandma, and I did as much advanced planning
as we did. Several months before Grandma got ill we all sat down and talked
about what we would do when this day arrived. We all understood that Grandma
was tired and ready to go, she was bound to get sick one day, this was
a natural thing, etc.
And then reality stepped in a hit me on the head with a big mallet.
Mom and I had these visions of her Slowly Drifting Off - Fading - Last
Words - Final Goodbyes. But it was all tubes and wires and monitors and
admission forms and pain and tears and nurse who can't tell you what's
wrong and doctors who say more tests and mom was babbling, distracting
the doctor with irrelevant information and a body that failed piece by
piece and she was crying that she wants to die she wants to die she wants
to die.
But Grandma was tough as hell. She would cuss out the nurses, she laughed
at my jokes (which I have to yell in her ear because she was stone cold
deaf), she knew the three questions by heart:
| Doctor |
BatWoman |
| What is your name? |
Frances Broady |
| What day of the week is it? |
It's on the newspaper right there. Can't you read? |
| Who is the President? |
Clinton... again! |
Of course, I rehearsed her on some of these just so she could irritate
the doctors.
One day I helped 3 nurses put a feeding tube up Grandma's nose without
success. One nurse was a very attractive redhead named Beverly. Oh, what
a complex thing is man! How is it possible that I could say soothing words
to Grandma, help 3 nurses force a fucking garden hose up her nose, and
notice Beverly's nice boney structure all at the same time? Talent, I guess.
I knew nothing but to shut up and listen to the doctor and have him
repeat things until Mom understood no matter how long it took. (I also
knew how to give injections and splint broken bones and administer CPR
and the Heimlich, but have had an more-than-average interesting life.)
But there was nothing I could do but hold Grandma's hand. Powerlessness
sucks, but it is a fundamental rule of the universe; there shall be things
thou canst control, many things, many many things. OK, enough with the
things already.
For Grandma the hospital was
nothing but tests, tests, and more tests. Swallowing tests. (Yes, that
gurgling and choking noise she makes is rather strange.)
Blood tests. (Imagine squeezing Grandma like a toothpaste tube; you
start by rolling her feet up, by the time you reach her chest there is
enough blood in her arm to take a sample.) They wanted to look up her butt with a lighted tube.
(Say, Doc, blockage is not her problem.) Biopsy tests. (Mrs.
Broady, you do not have cancer! Grandma looks displeased. She had her heart
set on cancer.) CAT Scans. (15 years of cats missing from the neighborhood
are discovered.)
For Mom it was call the doctor and wait. Fight Christmas traffic and
visit her at the hospital. Find her sweater. Find her lip balm. Clean glasses.
Comb hair. Ask the nurse if she's seen the doctor. Fight traffic to go
home. Call the doctor and wait wait wait. Next day start over again. She
found out more from the hospital staff than the doctor ever told her.
For me it was hold Mom's hand, then hold Grandma's hand. When I wasn't
holding anybody's hand I was playing with the controls on Grandma's power
bed. Up, down, up, down, getting seasick yet Grandma? I had also
pilfered 200 pairs of rubber gloves. I would sometimes sit in the office
at my computer with them on. When someone would come in an try to bother
me I'd snap the cuffs expertly and grin, 'Time for your exam!' They'd leave
me alone.
Mom finally caught our Indian doctor (the
last of four that were assigned) by making certain cryptic references to
Shiva, the destroyer. He called her back immediately. Yes, the results
of her CAT scan came back and she had a tiny stroke which damaged part
of her brain. Thus her inability to swallow. It may have even damaged the
complaint part of her brain, but the doctors said it should heal quickly.
It did.
Because of the stroke, Grandma was never allowed to eat again. The tapped
her stomach with a feeding tube. She had two choices of flavors; pink and
purple. Loosing the ability to eat was one of the worst blows of all.
One night a new nurse accidentally delivered a plate full of Real Food
to Grandma's room. Somehow she managed to eat a piece of chicken! Mom and
I were aghast when Grandma told us about it the next day. We had seen her
nearly choke on a thimble full of water. She could have died! "Oh
God, I was sooo hungry," she explained.
A few days later Mom filled out the forms to have Grandma transferred
to a nursing home. A small miracle happened and she got a bed at the St.
Peter's rest home. Mom was relieved. Surprisingly enough, Grandma was too.
St. Peter's was a good place, for a nursing home. >>>
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