Worried About My Nana

My Nana’s always been there.  Always just an hour away, up in Staten Island.  Up at the house on the hill, across the street fro Muddy Mountain, next to what used to be Dolly’s house.

She used to come down here during the summer, or over the holidays.  I remember, the Easter when I was ten, I was sitting next to her on the couch and she asked me what I wanted for Easter.  I told her I wanted my ears pierced.  I wanted to be able to wear real earrings.  Not just clip-on’s.  So, she reached over and got her purse, took ten dollars out of it and gave it to me, telling me that it was for me, and I should go get my ears pierced.

I don’t really wear earrings anymore, but the holes have never closed up.  Later on, she gave me a pair of owl earrings.  Little white owls.  I still have them in my jewelry box.  I think I’m gonna dig them out and wear them tomorrow.

You see, on Thursday, Nana took a fall and hadto be taken to the hospital.  It turns out she fractured her right hip bone.She’s pretty much okay from that.  My parents gave the go ahead for her to have surgery on Saturday morning to do what they could to fix the bone or something like that.  Basically, if they didn’t, she’d more or less be incapacitated.  She simply wouldn’t be able to put her full weight on it.  And that’s pretty depressing, considering she only weighs about ninety pounds . . .

Well, she went through the operation and I uess she came out of it physically pretty well, considering she’s over halfway to ninety-five years old.  But they’re having to give her pain medication and an IV and the pain medication creates the same effects that Alzheimers would.  She doesn’t recognize my dad, she calls out for "people who have been dead for sixty years," (direct quote from my dad,) and she’s a lot more violent.  She actually slapped a nurse tonight, and for something that they had to do, it took three people to hold her.  That’s how hard she fought.  Three people to hold a 90-odd pound, 94 and a half year old woman.  You gotta give her this: she’s strong for someone MY age.  For her age, she’s like, the Incredible Hulk.

As far as the IV goes, though, she can;t stand it.  She says it bothers her arm and all this stuff, and she’s actually pulled them out of her arm when she’s been in the hospital in the past.

Anyway, all that wouldn’t be so bad if not for the rest of what I heard tonight.  Because the medication’s effects on her, while upsetting and possibly physically damaging to the nurses, are pretty much the norm for what Nana’s like in the hospital.  I mean, they know how to deal with her taking out the IV, and they know what the pain medication does to her and all that.  But . . .

Tonight, my dad came home and said he needed to tell us something.  Turns out my uncle went into the saem hospital today, due to some kind of stomach infection/virus/bacteria thing.  I don’t know.  But while he was in seeing Uncle Bill, something more happened to Nana.  When my dad went back to see her, she wasn’t in the same room.  He found out she’d been taken to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.  Apparently, she’d had a heart attack.  They got her stabilized, however, and once she was, her pulse rate and heart beat was actually more steady and stronger than my uncle’s!  Go figure.

But she’s still disoriented and all that and . . .  this is the part that really upsets me . . . when my dad did see her tonight, he said she was asleep, but that there was an IV in I believe her neck, in an artery to get her fluids and nourishment and all that that IV’s do . . . but that her hands were bound to the bedrails.  That way, she wouldn’t tear out the IV.  I . . . I get the logic of it . . . but imagining her like that . . .  I can’t stand it . . .

Mike and I are going up there tomorrow to see her, even though the visiting is much more restricted in the Cardiac ICU.  I don’t care, though.  If the unthinkable happens . . . if she doesn’t pull through this . . . I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t see her one last time.

I do want to be optimistic.  I’d love to be able to say that, "Oh, yeah, she’ll pull through, I’ll have lots of time to drive up there later on."  But I know I can’t this time.  It’s not that I don’t feel she’ll come home, it’s just . . . I don’t want to think she will and then face the fact that I missed my last chance to see her.

I don’t know right now . . . whether I want her to come back home or not.  No, I don’t want to se her die, I never want to see her die.  But she’s obviously suffering.  And if death can bring her peace, I’d rather she had peace then for us to keep her here because we’re selfish and don’t want the pain that her death will bring us.  And dear God, I know already that it’s oing to damn near destroy me when she does die.  I can’t say that I’m not expecting it, but since when does that matter?  It stills comes as a shock, even though everyone and their cousin knows it’s coming.

I know it’s coming, undoubtedly soon for Nana.  But . . . how does one say goodbye to the only relative they’ve ever really felt close to?

::Sighs::  I’ve gotta go.  I’m crying and the screen is blurry . . .

Dolly, sorry if this entry’s making you cry, too.  I’ll definitely keep you better updated on things.  I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier.