Poor Grandma

I promise I haven't fallen off the face of the planet. Things have been a little crazy. My grandma is, well, dying. I got a call last Tuesday saying she's now got Congestive Heart Failure (this, along with emphysema and COPD). I went back and forth for days trying to figure out if I should head to Oklahoma. Do I go now? Do I wait until the funeral? Will she make it to Thanksgiving?

And then I talked to my cousin. Grandma has been really incoherent and disoriented because of her oxygen, potassium, and magnesium levels. In the midst of all her incoherency, she asked for Mary. Knowing that made my decision. I booked a flight on Wednesday and was in Dallas on Thursday morning at 10:50. She definitely did not look much like the 6', 220-lb. Grandma who I knew. She was thin. She was frail. She was in ICU. She, however, knew exactly who we were.

Over the next couple days, she continued to improve every day. On Sunday, however, she took a big step backward. She thought all morning that she was in jail and was telling me this crazy story about how she went out the night before and was arrested. She kept asking me to look for things...panties and gowns in drawers and closets that didn't exist and Diet Coke in a refrigerator that wasn't there. She asked me to look in the garage for a Diet Coke, and I knew then that she thought she was at home. A little later when my aunt and Granddad showed up, she looked me square in the eye as her eyes welled up with tears and said, "I know why you came to see me. You thought I was going to die." It took me by such surprise. All I could do was tell her I missed her and hadn't been back since June, so I came to visit.

I had to leave right after. My aunt thought her oxygen levels were off again, but it was actually her potassium and magnesium. I also found out that she's in the end stages of COPD (Stage 4 - very severe COPD). I don't know how much longer she's got. It scares me so much. I have to say, though, that I'll never regret going to see her. She got to see Mary, and we got to see her. Even if she lives for another ten years, I'll never regret booking that flight. I know that Mary being there helped her, and that she truly enjoyed seeing her. I just want her to be comfortable, to not suffer anymore. I want her to remember more and be less confused.

I just want my Grandma back.