Pick The Right Place to Be Sick

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When my family decided to ignore my Grandma’s protests and drag her little butt to the hospital. We chose the Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC). She ended up staying at the hospital for about 6 weeks.  From her colon cancer diagnosis through her post surgery rehabilitation, we saw almost every wing of that place. During that time we experienced the most compassionate and patient bedside manner ever.
My Grandma is demanding, but the nurses, aides and doctors all treated her with respect and empathy. At one point, she even felt like she was at a hotel. Admittedly, she has not been to many hotels, but, her stay there was quite comfortable.
In the weeks before her surgery, someone from my family spent every night in the room. Each of the rooms she was in had a large reclining chair that allowed us to catch a few zzz’s. She was so sick that she’d started hallucinating so, we didn’t want her to awaken   not see a familiar face. We’d gotten so comfortable as hospital guests that we knew how to tap air out of the IV line and reposition her arm to avoid late night beeping.
Each shift would come in and introduce themselves and write their contact information on the white board in the room. My Grandma didn’t understand that some folks worked the night shift. She would tell them,
“Oh honey, you go on home. I am sure you have a family to take care of. My granddaughters are here, they can take care of everything.”
LOL
My Lessons:
  • Choose a hospital with a reputation for excellent customer service. US News & World Report publishes a list each year. Here is this year’s list.
  • Show up. Your presence at the hospital helps the patient’s spirits and lets the docs, nurses and aides know that somebody is going to be there to hold them accountable.

The Diagnosis – Part 1

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After a couple of days in the hospital, with mega doses of fluids. The doctor was able to determine that my Grandma had a mass in her colon. He suggested surgery right away to remove the mass and biopsy it. The only problem was that my Grandma was so dehydrated that she couldn’t have any surgery. Her body was so dry that she was still leaving chocolate flakes of skin all over the place. The IV had to keep on being reset because her veins were in such poor shape that they kept blowing every time there was a new puncture to her skin.
It was torture for us to watch her get the needles, but that paled in comparison to how it felt for her. It actually took a couple of weeks for her to be well enough to get surgery. That was two weeks of no food and no water for her. For us, that meant two weeks of around the clock hospital visits. We wanted to make sure that at all times one of us was there for her.
The good thing is that she doesn’t remember that time period at all.
It was scary to watch her deteriorate. She became delusional and disoriented. She would forget who my mom was when she came to visit. And she would get very confused about where she was.
It was also terrible to watch my mom suffer. As the only child, she had to bear the load by herself. As the Granddaughter I was able to maintain a smidgen of emotional distance but I can’t imagine what it was like for my mom to see her mother knocking on death’s door.
My Grandma was scared too, but almost as soon as she would tear up, she would crack a joke. For example, she had no idea how bad she looked. The bright lights in the hospital room were a stark contrast to the dim lights at her house. So, when she went in the bathroom and caught a glimpse of her ghost like appearance. She teared up, but then right away said, “I wondered why y’all were looking all sad when you came to my house. I must’ve scared the life out of you. I look a mess.”
“Yes Grandma. You were in bad shape.”
Then she asked for some lip balm and lotion.
My Lesson:
Stay optimistic – Don’t let your mind go directly to the worst case scenario.
Find the funny – Sometimes, in order to survive the most tragic situations, you have to find humor in the little things. To this day, my family and I still crack up about my Grandma asking the orderly for his ID before allowing him to take her for her x-rays. She was absolutely not going to go until he showed her something with his picture and the hospital name on it.

All Her Original Parts

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My Grandma is 84 years old. When my family convinced her to go to the hospital earlier this year, we heard a common refrain from the nurses. It went something like this…
“Hi, Mrs. Grandma, now tell me about your medical history. What medications are you currently taking?”
“I don’t take no medicine.”
“Alright then, what prescriptions do you have?”
“I don’t have any prescriptions.”
At this point, the nurse would usually look up from the computer and gaze at my Grandma.
“Mrs. Grandma do you have high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol or anything like that?”
“No.”
“And how old are you again ma’am?”
“I just turned 84.”
At this point, the nurse usually stopped the interview and would just sit back.
“Hmm. Mrs. Grandma, I don’t see many 84 year olds come in here without some ailment. You must’ve been doing something right!”
The nurse turns back to the computer to ask the last few questions.
“Ok Mrs. Grandma, now tell me about the surgeries you’ve had.”
“I’ve haven’t had no operations.”
The nurse runs down a list of common operations.
“No. I have all of my original parts.”
My Lesson:
Eat out less – I can count on one hand the number of times my Grandma took my sisters and I to eat out. She is a good Southern girl that eats foods she can pronounce or that come from a garden. Cutting back on preservatives cuts down on the opportunities to put toxins in your system. She does have one vice, those Bugle corn snacks.
Have an eating routine – When I was a kid, my sisters and I hated eating at my Grandma’s because we had the same thing all of the time. Steamed chicken, rice and some kind of vegetable. Sometimes the steamed chicken would be replaced with salmon. And on Fridays we always had fried lake trout. Eating the same foods all of the time allowed my Grandma to maintain a healthy weight for her whole life. I like variety, but now that I’m older I can appreciate developing an eating routine and allowing the occasional splurge.
Extrasize – Every day my Grandma would get in something that she called ‘extrasize’, the rest of us would refer to that activity as exercise. She would walk around the block, do modified hundreds  while lying in the bed or stretch. Sometimes she would do all three, if the weather was nice and she was feeling good. I have a very busy life, but, if I want to have all of my original parts when I’m her age, I need to make daily ‘extrasize’ a part of my regimen also.

The Intervention

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Family In It Together

Family In It Together

Everything had come to a head. We’d had another one of those ‘What should we do about Grandma” family meetings and my mom finally had the nerve to confront my Grandma about her health. It was not easy to get to this point and many tears had already been shed.
Last year my Grandma started to have problems with her digestion. She was always getting constipated. This was abnormal for her because she was someone that used to go at least once daily. We tried every kind of remedy from smooth move to colonics to release the build up, so to speak. Some things worked for a little while, but after a while, nothing was helping. She started losing a ton of weight. Actually, the weight loss was one of the first symptoms that we noticed. Over the course of several months she lost about 40 pounds. That was drastic for a slightly built woman of 5’1″.
Fast forward to January.
By this time, Grandma is on a diet of Ensure and clear liquids and she is having trouble keeping that down. When I talked to her on the phone, her voice was labored and she seemed to be having trouble coming up with words. I was concerned. I suggested that she let me take her to the hospital to get checked out. She got annoyed and wasn’t having it. After that call, my mom and I talked and she decided that the next Friday we were taking her to the hospital no matter what.
On Friday morning, we showed up at her house and we nearly bowled over by what we found. She was just a skeleton covered with a thin layer of skin. Her eyes were popping out of the sockets and her skin was so dry, she was shedding everywhere. My mom was devastated. I was too, but I knew that I had to be strong for both of them.
After about 4 hours of negotiating with her, we finally convinced her to let us take her to the hospital. She made me promise not to let them cut her. I made that promise. One that I would later break to save her life.
My Lesson
– Do what you think is right for your loved one. Even when they fight you tooth and nail about it. The drama from the confrontation is nothing compared to the regret of not doing anything at all.
Resources
– Most states have services for the elderly that includes therapists and social workers. Looking back, it would been helpful if we had engaged those resources very early on. That would’ve allowed us to be the ‘good guys’ and all of her angst would’ve been put on the outsider. That would’ve saved us a lot of stress and tears.

The Mission

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The mission for The Grandma Chronicles blog is to provide community and information to adults that are caring for their aging or sick parents and grandparents.

Recently, my mom and I began to care for my Grandma after she got out of the hospital. We were overwhelmed and it took several weeks for all of us to get into the groove. Trying to balance between providing a nurturing environment for G-ma to recover and maintaining our jobs, lives and relationships was tricky.

This blog is borne out of that first six weeks. If you are caring for an elderly or sick relative, I hope that this blog helps you feel less isolated. I also hope I can bring a chuckle or two to your long days.