(no subject)
My brother, Gus, came down from Superior today to visit my grandmother. She's out of the hospital and into a nursing home for recovery, so that is one big victory. After the botched surgery and sub-par care from the hospital, we weren't sure she was going to be strong enough to get out again, but luckily they were able to release her on Thursday.
Anyway, Gus and his fiancee Kat are planning on getting their wedding cake from a local place about two miles from where I live, so he asked me to pick up a few cupcakes he could taste test with Gramma during his visit. She is out of the hospital, which is huge, but she's still not doing as well as any of us hoped, so he wanted to do this little thing to kind of make her part of the wedding even if she doesn't make it to the wedding itself. I thought it was a fantastic idea, so I didn't hesitate to pick up a few cupcakes and head to Marshfield for the afternoon.
Gramma was kind of tired and out of it, but as I said, she likes listening, so Gus and I spent an hour or so talking about this and that in our own lives. After awhile she started to look a little restless, so we had the nice nurse come in and get her into a wheelchair so we could take Gramma for a little walk around the facilitie's rather nice grounds. There's was a nice walking path and a park right next door, so that's where we took her. Gus also had his dog, Rhonda, along for the visit, and I think Gramma enjoyed watching her play in the weeds and chase grasshoppers.
It was a nice visit, but I could see Gramma kind of getting non-responsive as the walk progressed. She went from communicating as well as she ever does these days, answering simple 'yes' and 'no' questions, to having trouble even with those simple words but still able to do a few easy hand gestures, to just sitting there and not even trying to respond, all over the course of about 45 minutes or so. It just... got to me more than I thought it would today, I guess, because by the time we got back to her room to try and get her ready for dinner, my own peace of mind was either leave or start crying. And since everyone else had come to visit her around that same time - my aunt and her current beau, both of my parents, and of course Gus was still there - I decided to make my escape and cry on the way back home instead of in front of all those people.
If I'm honest with myself, though, I can't blame all those tears entirely on Gramma's slow but steady decline, much as I wish I could. Most of them, yeah... but not all of them. Not today, at least.
This morning a really good friend and I decided, mutually, that whatever we had going on just wasn't working out, and breaking it off hurt more than I thought it would. Not right away - I mean, during the exchange, I was fairly indifferent because it's not like we hadn't seen this coming the last few weeks, and neither one of us was really to blame (or on the other side of the coin, both of us had equal share of the blame... take your pick). But later, when I had an hour of fairly empty highway with nothing but my own thoughts for company, then I started to feel it. Not totally heartbroken or anything, but there is a definite, definable ache as I mourn what could have been.
That, paired with seeing Gramma small and frail in her big hospital bed... That made the water works pretty unavoidable today.
Anyway, Gus and his fiancee Kat are planning on getting their wedding cake from a local place about two miles from where I live, so he asked me to pick up a few cupcakes he could taste test with Gramma during his visit. She is out of the hospital, which is huge, but she's still not doing as well as any of us hoped, so he wanted to do this little thing to kind of make her part of the wedding even if she doesn't make it to the wedding itself. I thought it was a fantastic idea, so I didn't hesitate to pick up a few cupcakes and head to Marshfield for the afternoon.
Gramma was kind of tired and out of it, but as I said, she likes listening, so Gus and I spent an hour or so talking about this and that in our own lives. After awhile she started to look a little restless, so we had the nice nurse come in and get her into a wheelchair so we could take Gramma for a little walk around the facilitie's rather nice grounds. There's was a nice walking path and a park right next door, so that's where we took her. Gus also had his dog, Rhonda, along for the visit, and I think Gramma enjoyed watching her play in the weeds and chase grasshoppers.
It was a nice visit, but I could see Gramma kind of getting non-responsive as the walk progressed. She went from communicating as well as she ever does these days, answering simple 'yes' and 'no' questions, to having trouble even with those simple words but still able to do a few easy hand gestures, to just sitting there and not even trying to respond, all over the course of about 45 minutes or so. It just... got to me more than I thought it would today, I guess, because by the time we got back to her room to try and get her ready for dinner, my own peace of mind was either leave or start crying. And since everyone else had come to visit her around that same time - my aunt and her current beau, both of my parents, and of course Gus was still there - I decided to make my escape and cry on the way back home instead of in front of all those people.
If I'm honest with myself, though, I can't blame all those tears entirely on Gramma's slow but steady decline, much as I wish I could. Most of them, yeah... but not all of them. Not today, at least.
This morning a really good friend and I decided, mutually, that whatever we had going on just wasn't working out, and breaking it off hurt more than I thought it would. Not right away - I mean, during the exchange, I was fairly indifferent because it's not like we hadn't seen this coming the last few weeks, and neither one of us was really to blame (or on the other side of the coin, both of us had equal share of the blame... take your pick). But later, when I had an hour of fairly empty highway with nothing but my own thoughts for company, then I started to feel it. Not totally heartbroken or anything, but there is a definite, definable ache as I mourn what could have been.
That, paired with seeing Gramma small and frail in her big hospital bed... That made the water works pretty unavoidable today.