My Gramma
My sister and I went to see my Gramma at her nursing home last night for the first time in too long and got a picture of what ZERO quality of life is like.
Several years ago, she was diagnosed with female cancer of virtually every variety. The doctors did chemo which caused her to have a major collapse, and then radiation which caused a major stroke. Unfortunately for her, it beat back her cancer until recently.
She can not move her left side. She rarely speaks. She regularly forgets that my grandfather (who's been dead for almost three years) has passed away, and when told, has to go through the horror of loss again. Everything she eats or drinks (including water) is thinned or thickened to the consistency of watery pudding. She lost all of her teeth from the radiation and she has shrunken into this little bony thing that looks more like a concentration camp victim than my always solid and round Gramma. She has sores on her face and hairline where several cancerous growths have been removed (because they were hurting her) and they don’t seem to be healing very quickly. She had the flu a few weeks ago and evidently still has the sniffles and she was having a difficult time breathing around the giant ... (okay, I'll just say it)... boogers in her nose.
I swear to God, if I ever get like that, I will hold responsible every person who reads this and doesn't smother me with a pillow, inject me with something lethal or in some other way end my suffering.
Last night she didn't recognize my sister or I when we got there. After Katie prompted her a few times, she nodded in response to "Do you remember your granddaughter's Katie and Liz?" She didn't speak the entire forty-five minutes we were there. She nodded a couple of times in response to questions we'd ask her (Like are you doing well, etc).
Before she got sick, my grandmother was a force to be reckoned with. She was smart, feisty, beautiful, gracious, ornery, loving, classy and tremendously funny. She used to tell risqué jokes, (a couple that I don't even think she understood), and might have been the only person ever able to keep my grandfather (who was at least twice as ornery as she) in line.
My sister and I both have a pretty good feeling that last night was the last time we'll see her. I'm tremendously sad today about the fact that my gramma is dying and it's such a long, lingering death. I'm feel guilty that I haven't gone to see her more, and at the same time, feel resentful that I have to remember her like that.