Monday Jun 01, 2009

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This is going to sound a lot like my last blog. I apologise.

I was visiting Grandad at the hospital today. He isn't coming home. The doctor met with my mom & gramma while I was at the lawyer's office (I'll get to that in a minute). She said that he *could* come home, but there would be a lot of work involved in that... and he may only be home for a few days. The medicine that they gave him to help his swollen kidneys caused the congestive heart failure. Everything is shutting down now.

They're concentrating on keeping him comfortable at this point - giving him morphene. When I arrived the pain medicine was kicking in. He livened up and actually started telling stories and we all had a few laughs. He talked about when he was on a championship roller hockey team "back in the old days," about tying all the pretty young girls' skates up, about modifying my pram so I could lay on it when I was in my spika casts as a baby, and how he'd push me along and I'd pick leaves off of the shrubs, about how he'd tie my shoes for me (til I was about eight years old, lol)... it was very nice reminiscing.

He was of... I don't know... animated, a little. Full of beans, my gramma said. The plan is to move him to a room... I can imagine him giving the nurses in the ward a run for their money wink

I know I'll look back on this later, so, even if it's just for me, I want to remind myself that as much as I enjoyed our visit, I'll always remember that the way he was talking & telling stories reminded me of

SPOILERS! (Click to view)


We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.

Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

... not in a bad way, you understand... just in an adorable old man way.



He asked for a glass of milk, and my mom & I asked the nurse, and soon enough, he was having his first sip. He said, "That's one thing I'm sure going to miss." Milk. He said he hopes they have milk in the great beyond. I love my grandad. I'm going to miss him. A lot.

He held all our hands at once - my gramma's, my mom's, and mine. It was a very nice visit. I'm thankful for that. I gave him a big hug & told him I love him before I left for the day. I'll be up tomorrow.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

You might wonder why I've pretty much said my goodbyes to my grandfather already, when the doctor said that he could still have a week or so. Well, there's a bit of a story there. My mother seems to be able to - I feel crazy even typing this - let people know they can die... and it usually happens within 24 hours after she speaks with them. She's done it more than a few times, and she encouraged me to do it for my brother... he was gone in less than a day. Whether or not it's coincidence or just some sort of believing what we choose, it's happened too many times for me to leave anything to chance. She doesn't just randomly do it, they have to be ready, of course. He said on Friday that he no longer wanted to live in pain. She discussed it with us over the weekend, and spoke to him this morning.



Heckler was there with me, in spirit and via text. He's been wonderfully supportive through all of this. Pagz has also been great, as well - he's helped me out a lot with babysitting and distracting me from everything that's going on.

And, yet another thing that involves both of my best friends... my divorce. That sounded much less weird in my head. Anyhoo... Pagz has given me a ridiculous amount of help with my do-it-yourself divorce (which has been nothing but a pain, srsly. If I could do things over I would definately save up for a lawyer, even though my divorce is a simple, uncontested one). He also introduced me to a friend of his from school who is a lawyer, who commissioned my (hopefully final) affidavit. I took the papers to the post office and sent them off express post on the way home from the hospital. Once all that is done, I'll finally be able to start planning the wedding biggrin

VIEW 25 of 25 COMMENTS
xbob13x:
Thanks for careing. I'm home and all went good.
daggx:
Thanks for the B-day wishes and the kind words, sorry for not writing back sooner but I have been away and only had spotty internet access. Things have gotten a bit better since I wrote that blog back in February, although they are still from perfect.

Sorry to hear about your grandfather, he sounds like a wonderful person. I wish you well through these trying times and I hope things get better for you and your family soon.

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