As we come up upon another Thanksgiving, and I know folks might be leaving tomorrow for the long weekend, I just wanted to say everyone have a Happy Turkey Day and a minor request too.
I’m not the one to talk about my personal life much. Heck there is a couple things that only a smidgen of folks on the board know about me. But this one I guess I need more than just a smidgen of folks help on.
I was all excited this year for Thanksgiving for some reason. I guess because most of the relatives had other plans or not doing anything so I was going to spend Thanksgiving at “the cabin” (a fair amount of you know about it. I talk about it enough). Anywho I was going to stop at the casino on the way up there and have the Turkey Day Buffet then Friday go into town and watch the “World Famous Fish House Parade”. Well all of that came to a screeching halt on early Sunday.
Got a call from my mom with 5 words I hate to hear. “Grandma is in the hospital”. Now my grandma is 74 and has had some minor health issues so hearing this normally isn’t shocking. But then the next sentence just made my heart sink. “They flew her to HCMC”.
Now HCMC is Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. If you “get flown to HCMC” its never good. Usually you hear about it on the news when there is a bad car accident that someone gets flown to HCMC (the folks who live in MN know this all to well). Apparently the ambulance took her to our local hospital, which is a great hospital and one of the best in MN (St Francis in Shakopee), but they couldn’t do anything so they flew her to HCMC.
Find out she has a brain aneurysm and that is why she is in Minneapolis (HCMC treats head trauma victims). I was in shock. It just didn’t make sense as I talked to her Saturday morning and saw her last Sunday. I usually go visit her and grandpa on Sundays. So having this just come up a day after I spoke with her is just very scary.
I along with most of the family has been down there for the last 3 days and its so hard to walk in that room and see someone who for your whole life you've known as the strongest (and most stubborn) person look so helpless. I can’t even walk in the room because that is not how I picture my grandma with all these tubes in her, I go in and have to leave the room. Then I feel so bad for my grandpa. He is so lost right now. When you’ve been married for 56+ years like he and grandma have they pretty much are one in the same. Grandma always makes sure he’s doing everything what he’s suppose to do. So when one part of that is gone the other really doesn’t know what to do. Also seeing him cry, which is something I don't think I've ever seen him do, just makes it worse and hurts more.
On the positive side (yeah lets talk about that), Grandma has been making some progress. She had two surgeries Sunday and yesterday she opened up her eyes and kinda sat up a couple times. She can hear us but can’t respond but she does do movement when she knows it’s a family member talking to her. She opened her eyes a few times for my grandpa and moved her arm towards my uncle when he talked so that’s good. They also try this thing with the respirator where they turn down the respirator so the patient’s lungs can start breathing on their own. When the patient can’t the machine kicks back on. They said the first couple days its usually 15 minutes before it kicks back on., Well yesterday it was 2 ½ hours and today was 3 hours that she breathed on her own with minimal help from the respirator. So as we say, its baby steps. But she still has a long way to go.
So please do me two favors. Please keep me and my family in your prayers and if you go somewhere for Thanksgiving or even if you stay home and have it with family tell them you love them and appreciate what they do for you. Because you never know when that might get taken away from you.
Thanks
Tony
I’m not the one to talk about my personal life much. Heck there is a couple things that only a smidgen of folks on the board know about me. But this one I guess I need more than just a smidgen of folks help on.
I was all excited this year for Thanksgiving for some reason. I guess because most of the relatives had other plans or not doing anything so I was going to spend Thanksgiving at “the cabin” (a fair amount of you know about it. I talk about it enough). Anywho I was going to stop at the casino on the way up there and have the Turkey Day Buffet then Friday go into town and watch the “World Famous Fish House Parade”. Well all of that came to a screeching halt on early Sunday.
Got a call from my mom with 5 words I hate to hear. “Grandma is in the hospital”. Now my grandma is 74 and has had some minor health issues so hearing this normally isn’t shocking. But then the next sentence just made my heart sink. “They flew her to HCMC”.
Now HCMC is Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. If you “get flown to HCMC” its never good. Usually you hear about it on the news when there is a bad car accident that someone gets flown to HCMC (the folks who live in MN know this all to well). Apparently the ambulance took her to our local hospital, which is a great hospital and one of the best in MN (St Francis in Shakopee), but they couldn’t do anything so they flew her to HCMC.Find out she has a brain aneurysm and that is why she is in Minneapolis (HCMC treats head trauma victims). I was in shock. It just didn’t make sense as I talked to her Saturday morning and saw her last Sunday. I usually go visit her and grandpa on Sundays. So having this just come up a day after I spoke with her is just very scary.
I along with most of the family has been down there for the last 3 days and its so hard to walk in that room and see someone who for your whole life you've known as the strongest (and most stubborn) person look so helpless. I can’t even walk in the room because that is not how I picture my grandma with all these tubes in her, I go in and have to leave the room. Then I feel so bad for my grandpa. He is so lost right now. When you’ve been married for 56+ years like he and grandma have they pretty much are one in the same. Grandma always makes sure he’s doing everything what he’s suppose to do. So when one part of that is gone the other really doesn’t know what to do. Also seeing him cry, which is something I don't think I've ever seen him do, just makes it worse and hurts more.
On the positive side (yeah lets talk about that), Grandma has been making some progress. She had two surgeries Sunday and yesterday she opened up her eyes and kinda sat up a couple times. She can hear us but can’t respond but she does do movement when she knows it’s a family member talking to her. She opened her eyes a few times for my grandpa and moved her arm towards my uncle when he talked so that’s good. They also try this thing with the respirator where they turn down the respirator so the patient’s lungs can start breathing on their own. When the patient can’t the machine kicks back on. They said the first couple days its usually 15 minutes before it kicks back on., Well yesterday it was 2 ½ hours and today was 3 hours that she breathed on her own with minimal help from the respirator. So as we say, its baby steps.
But she still has a long way to go.So please do me two favors. Please keep me and my family in your prayers and if you go somewhere for Thanksgiving or even if you stay home and have it with family tell them you love them and appreciate what they do for you. Because you never know when that might get taken away from you.
Thanks
Tony
