It *IS* a Holiday

It is a holiday.
Of course it is.
I have a relative in the hospital.

No holiday is complete without that required trip to the emergency room.

Let's see if I can summarize correctly with my eyes crossing from exhaustion.

The nursing home calls and leaves a msg on the ans mach at approx 11:48am.

I get the msg at approx 12:48pm.

Msg says that there has been a change in granddaddy's condition, please call back.

I call back.

Nurse says he is spiking a temp, on oxygen, (and robitussin, nebulizer, tylenol, antibiotics) and they are waiting to see how it works. He may be transported to the hospital.

I ran around (in anticipation of that 'we're transporting him' call) trying to get everything together for the meal tomorrow plus more food for another family who is having a bad time right now.

I have a total of 4 children running around my house.

I get most of the food done, halfway through the cheese pies when the nurse calls back saying they were transporting him asap (about 2pm). Granddaddy's O2 sat was at 77% on 3 liters of O2. Translated: That sucks. He's not doing good at all.

I tell her it will take me an hour to get there due to traffic and the weather.

Sent two kids to my grandmother's house to watch her (Mrs. Wobbly-but-not-going-to-use-walker).

Dropped the other two off with their daddy at work.

Stop and start. Hurry up and wait. Traffic, rain, traffic, rain, stoplight, stoplight, stoplight.

Get to ER.

His O2 is up to 92% on 15 freaking liters of oxygen!! Respirations are up to 35. Sheesh.

They hit him with levaquin and vancosyn (sp??.... generic vancomycin), one after the other. The first chest x-ray shows pretty much nothing. The 2nd shows pneumonia in the right lung. He is 95% unresponsive. No surprise at a 103 degree temp. It took almost 4 rounds of tylenol and the antibiotics to get it to drop to 99 degrees 5 hours later.

The upstairs/internal dr says he is critical. Only time will tell.

Did I mention it threw his sugar out of whack? Just a little ol' 141 (sarcasm here). Nothing 3 units of insulin can't take care of.

Had to make two of those decisions. No breathing tube. No surgery. Just make him comfortable.
He can't make it through surgery if it was needed anyway.

He wouldn't wake up when I left.

Went home. Traffic, rain, traffic, rain. Hurry up and wait. I got home about 9pm. A hour ride that normally takes 25 mins.

My household has increased while I was away. My sister, her husband and her two kids are here along with my oldest child's friend and the 6 of us.

My sister and my mother are supposed to finish everything up tomorrow while I'm at the hosptial.

Did I mention that I haven't told my grandmother the full extent yet? My sister and I decided to let her have one more night of sleep. She won't sleep if she knows. She can't do anything for him anyway.

I can't do anything. I feel as though I have fought a war with a supreme being. I won the last battle and but am losing the war. I have tried. I have tried so hard. I know what the ultimate outcome will be and that is the way of life. Why can't I accept that? I still feel that if he passes away, I'll have failed him in the worst way.

What is it I tell my friend? That she is always looking for guilt to add to her collection? I soooo do the same thing. Maybe that is why we are friends, we have so much in common. LOL I don't mean that in any offensive way because she is my support system and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I get so flipping sappy when I'm tired.

I tell myself it could be worse. The family I was trying to fix some food for, they found out that the wife's mother has cancer and only has less than a year to live. They found out yesterday morning. The wife is understandbly upset and doesn't feel up to cooking. The husband is my husband's boss. All of my husband's co-workers (and there aren't many of them) were taking food. My husband is smoking a boston butt for them. I fixed bbq slaw, a cherry cheese pie and got some buns. My husband couldn't ask for a better boss than this one so I was more than happy to help. It was a good thing though that I got the fixings for the food before I found out about granddaddy.

Now onto a sleepless night....


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