Welp, more family shit...
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2016 5:48 pm
So... Grandma's been rushed to the hospital, yesterday. What started with her feeling inordinately weak was diagnosed as a small stroke once they placed her in an ambulance. Once she had access to the ICU's facilities, that small stroke was joined with arterial sclerosis and a case of stenosis on the opposite ventricle. Her heart's too beat-up for a stent to be considered, so we're stuck watching her rest and making sure her oxygen saturation levels are topped off. Turns out she'd been neglecting to take her prescribed inhalers for the past few weeks, going off the rather boneheaded notion that hey, No asthma attacks in the past six months means I'm fine! Whee!
You don't need a Ph. D. to know you can't just stop taking cortisone-based meds if they're what's keeping your lungs and trachea working properly.
The result is she's in a touch-and-go situation. We're waiting 48 hours to see if she'll stay stable, then it's back home - and hopefully without stairs to climb anymore. Doc says she can't even handle small flights of stairs anymore. Her heart would give out. That means we have to start looking for other housing options for her; my aunt's basement studio isn't a viable option anymore.
Being the Nurse's Son, I had to play Spock all evening long while everyone on the maternal side, Mom excluded, was freaking out. The cousins texted me a solid twenty times last night and kept overblowing the prognoses I relayed as I got them. I felt like keeping the vigil going at home, but two of the cousins more or less dragged me by the collar so we'd wait as a group at my uncle's place. Now even my phone smells like cheap cigarettes and Mary Jane...
Tried to keep the younger cousin in check, he flipped out and rushed to the hospital, thinking Grandma was at death's door. "You just don't know, Dan! She could be! You don't know, man! YOU DON'T KNOW!"
*sighs*
I do know. My mom's a nurse and I've been through one grandfather, one aunt and two uncles' deaths before. If the ER guys say they can't operate her, they can't operate her. There's no miracle cure and no way she'll come back being the same way she was. There's no way we'll be able to sweep this under the rug. She's not dying - but you can see the edge of her life from here. Marc, said cousin, was heartbroken.
My own charge of anxiety and fear crept up on me once everything was said and done, last night. I was lying in bed, trying to meditate, and I felt fear creeping in. My grandmother's mortality underlines my parents' mortality. Dad's turning sixty in two weeks. Mom's switching to the six-oh next July. They're already discussing matters of succession, and I can already mentally stick little stickers on the household objects that will end up being mine.
The house itself, half of the furniture, half of the family's debts. A few days ago, Dad discussed this. "You know I'll be dead in about fifteen years, right?"
I felt like pulling a Marc. "You don't know that, Dad. Maybe you'll push on 'til you're past eighty. Google's Death Clock math bullshit can go fuck itself."
He wants to, of course, but he's being realistic.
I'm starting to look for internships on the 18th, in two days. I've already started looking for planned housing. 25% of my salary for rent and living expenses, no matter if I strike it rich or stay in the Starving Former Student league.
If my folks are already thinking of waltzing out, I want to make it easy on them. That means being financially autonomous, which I already am. That means having my own place. That means being stable. God knows Mom still feels the need to coddle me for every little scrap of "adulting" I have to go through.
You don't need a Ph. D. to know you can't just stop taking cortisone-based meds if they're what's keeping your lungs and trachea working properly.
The result is she's in a touch-and-go situation. We're waiting 48 hours to see if she'll stay stable, then it's back home - and hopefully without stairs to climb anymore. Doc says she can't even handle small flights of stairs anymore. Her heart would give out. That means we have to start looking for other housing options for her; my aunt's basement studio isn't a viable option anymore.
Being the Nurse's Son, I had to play Spock all evening long while everyone on the maternal side, Mom excluded, was freaking out. The cousins texted me a solid twenty times last night and kept overblowing the prognoses I relayed as I got them. I felt like keeping the vigil going at home, but two of the cousins more or less dragged me by the collar so we'd wait as a group at my uncle's place. Now even my phone smells like cheap cigarettes and Mary Jane...
Tried to keep the younger cousin in check, he flipped out and rushed to the hospital, thinking Grandma was at death's door. "You just don't know, Dan! She could be! You don't know, man! YOU DON'T KNOW!"
*sighs*
I do know. My mom's a nurse and I've been through one grandfather, one aunt and two uncles' deaths before. If the ER guys say they can't operate her, they can't operate her. There's no miracle cure and no way she'll come back being the same way she was. There's no way we'll be able to sweep this under the rug. She's not dying - but you can see the edge of her life from here. Marc, said cousin, was heartbroken.
My own charge of anxiety and fear crept up on me once everything was said and done, last night. I was lying in bed, trying to meditate, and I felt fear creeping in. My grandmother's mortality underlines my parents' mortality. Dad's turning sixty in two weeks. Mom's switching to the six-oh next July. They're already discussing matters of succession, and I can already mentally stick little stickers on the household objects that will end up being mine.
The house itself, half of the furniture, half of the family's debts. A few days ago, Dad discussed this. "You know I'll be dead in about fifteen years, right?"
I felt like pulling a Marc. "You don't know that, Dad. Maybe you'll push on 'til you're past eighty. Google's Death Clock math bullshit can go fuck itself."
He wants to, of course, but he's being realistic.
I'm starting to look for internships on the 18th, in two days. I've already started looking for planned housing. 25% of my salary for rent and living expenses, no matter if I strike it rich or stay in the Starving Former Student league.
If my folks are already thinking of waltzing out, I want to make it easy on them. That means being financially autonomous, which I already am. That means having my own place. That means being stable. God knows Mom still feels the need to coddle me for every little scrap of "adulting" I have to go through.