the new year

In what I hope is not a harbinger of the coming year, my New Year’s Eve was cast upon with loneliness and death.  My closest friends were all out of town and none of the “nightlife” options appealed to me this year.  The most difficult part of the day was however the update my father gave me on my grandmother.  Friday, she had been moved back to the hospital from the rehab center.  On Saturday, she was moved back into ICU.  After being bed ridden with a feeding tube down one nostril for two weeks, she had developed pneumonia.  The doctors wanted to do a surgery to insert a feeding tube directly into her stomach, however because of the respiratory problems, could not do the surgery yet.  Saturday night was a rough night for my grandma, she was having a hard time breathing.  However, Sunday morning she was doing better after one big coughing bit.  For now they are going to see if they can work on breaking up some of the blockage, so they can go ahead with the surgery to insert a feeding tube into her stomach.  However that’ll be a couple of days at the earliest (that they would do the surgery).

I was lucky to be with a friend when I did get this call though.  Because my dad talked to me about what would happen if things got worse.  They are going to aggressively treat what they can…but they aren’t going to keep her alive just for the sake of keeping her alive.  I know she’s lived a long and good life, but its still kinda tough to wrap my head around the fact that she might die.

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