| Current mood: | depressed |
| Current music: | TBS |
If you read all of this, you're amazing.
The past week and a half has been an extremely hard roller coaster of emotions. I still haven't fathom the fact that it was all real and the outcome can't be changed.
08-01-03:
I got up to Fallbrook. My mom picked me up because my grandma was with my grandpa at a doctors appointment. We went to Submarina and I was just going to hang out at my moms house until the doctors appointment was over. About 20 minutes after we got to her house we got a phone call from my aunt. She said that during the doctors appointment they found fluid around my grandpas lungs and they were going to remove it. Well, the decrease in pressure around his lungs ended in one of his lungs collapsing.
I called Brooke and she told me not to fret, things like that could happen and that they are easy to fix. Well, after the collapsed lung, they admitted him into the hospital. He spent that night in ICU.
I, of course, stayed with him the whole time. When I first showed up at the hospital, he was in the ER so I sat in there with him. He's like "I knew you were coming down this weekend, I just didn't know I'd be spending it in the hospital."
I told him not to worry, I wasn't going to go anywhere until he got out of there.
08-02-03:
Things were looking good. His vitals were good and there was no more fluid around his lungs. They felt good about everything so they moved him out of ICU to his own room. I went to see American Wedding with Sara because my grandpa said he'd be fine and I needed to get out. After the movie we went to Jack in the Box and I bought my grandma food. We went back to the hospital and sat with my grandpa for a little while. We watched baseball and I shared my Dr. Pepper with him. They weren't giving him solid foods, so it was the best I could do.
He said he felt a lot better and that he wanted my grandma and I to go home and get some rest because he was going to be fine. So, around 11, we went home.
08-03-03
We were taking our time to get ready that morning because we had no reason to stress. He was fine... or so we thought.
My aunt showed up at the house to tell me that during the night my grandpas lung filled up again and they had to put a tube in to drain the fluid. We got to the hospital and my grandma just went off. She was yelling at the nurse because they were supposed to call us if anything happened but they didn't. The stupid nurse was like "We were supposed to call you?" OH MY GOD, I WANTED TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HER!
They put him back into ICU and everyone was freaking out because he had a bad spell and they thought that was the end. There were about 30 people that showed up to see him. The ICU nurses weren't a big fan, but FUCK THEM! They're lucky that wasn't the WHOLE Taylor family. It was probably only a fourth of it.
I spent the night at the hospital and kept my papa company with my grandma.
Oh yea, somewhere in there the doctors came out and told us they found fluid around his heart but they weren't really worried about it.
08-04-03
My grandma got fed up with the doctors at Fallbrook so we arranged to have him moved to the Polamar hospital in Escondido. When we got there, he was pretty much all set up in his room so we sat with him. The nurse, Bill, was asking the basic questions. He was asking my grandma because he didn't want my grandpa to talk too much. He did have three questions he had to ask my papa though.
Bill: Herman, are you afraid of your caregiver? [Talking about my grandma]
Papa: *Nods*
Me: *Laughs*
Bill: Has she ever touched you in places you didn't want to be touched, against you consent?
Papa: *Nods*
Bill: But you liked that, didn't you?
Papa: *Nods*
My grandpa has always had the best sense of humor, no matter what was going on. <3
The doctor came in and told us that he wanted to do the surgery on his heart to remove the fluid from the sack that surrounds the heart. My grandpa told us, while we were still in Fallbrook, he thought he'd feel a lot better after that was done. They got him ready and were going to move him to the operating room to do their thing. I came in and...
Me: *Holds his hand* I love you, papa.
Papa: *squeezes my hand* I love you too, tiger.
Me: I will see you soon, then grandma and I will take you home.
Papa: *nods* Be good.
Me: Of course.
Oh man, I didn't want to let go of his hand. I made myself let go because they had to take him off. I told myself he would come out and everything would be ok.
The surgion said the surgery went well and they removed all of the fluid. He said he still had the resporatory thing in because it was normal for it to stay in a little while after the surgery considering how old he was. He also said that if we would've waited another three hours to get him in there and do the surgery, then he would've died. Oh but, the doctors in Fallbrook told us it was nothing to worry about. FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU.
*random*
The doctors in Fallbrook were Asian. My grandpa couldn't remember the names so he called them Ying and Yang. :D
08-05-03 through 08-08-03
He was sedated, still with the resporatory thing down his throat. My cousins and my uncle from Alabama flew in and I spent a lot of time getting to know them. Adam, Sara, and I went go karting and bowling. The doctors kept telling us he was getting stronger, things were looking good.
During these few days we found out after surgery they took the resporator out and he stopped breathing. They put it back in, which was against my grandpas wishes. He said if his heart stopped then let it stop. He didn't want to live if he couldn't do the things he did before he went into the hospital. He didn't want to live with tubes in him.
08-09-03
My grandpa turns 73. We had a little party in his room. They still had him sedated he never got to read his cards or see his candy and balloons. The card my grandma got for him made me cry. She wrote "Come home soon, I sure do miss you" and at the bottom it said "I love you forever and ever. Your babe, Liz"
Things didn't seem like they were going to get better so my grandma had a family meeting and they decided, depending on what the doctors said on Monday, that they were going to remove the resporator.
08-10-03
The doctors told my grandma that their decision was the best they could do. They said he had lung cancer that spread to his heart. They didn't check any other places because those two were the most important. They couldn't do Chemo because that would kill him, couldn't do radiation because it wasn't just in one area, and surgery wasn't an option.
They took everything out of him, except for the morphine IV and the tube coming from his chest that drained the fluid from his lungs. This was about 10:30 or 11 in the morning. I couldn't sit in his room for long because I was afraid he would pass while I was there. That was the last thing I wanted. I didn't want to leave him though, but I couldn't help it.
Around 3:30 they said they had a room to move him in so all of the family could be in it. They were getting things set up so Brooke, Clayton, and I waited in the room they were going to move him in. The nurses came in to get the bed and we sat and waited. Around 4:20 or so a nurse came in and said the nurse from CCU called and wanted us down there. We knew what had happened.
The rest of the family was standing at the elevator so we all piled in and went down to his room. I couldn't go in there. I didn't want to see him like that. Brooke got me and told me to come in, I didn't have to look at him but I could come in. My grandma was crying so hard and hugging his body. I glanced over at him... it didn't even look at him. He had no color, he wasn't moving.. it was horrible. I left the room. I felt like I was going to pass out. I went to the waiting room and my uncle Micheal hugged me and we cried together. My grandma came out and said "I feel like I have to call Herman and let him know what's going on and tell him I'll be home soon"
I can't even begin to explain how much I miss him. It's almost impossible to sum up what I feel. I can't believe he's gone. There will be no more trips to McDonalds for breakfast, no more trips to Del Mar to watch the horse races, no more sharing candy and watching tv, no more rides to and from the train station with him, no more crossing gaurd papa, no more watching him fall asleep in his chair, no more trying to steal the remote while he was sleeping, no more watching him pick his nose, no more "Hey tiger" no more hugs or kisses or hearing him tell me to "Be good" everytime I left. No more teasing be about piercings. No more hearing his voice at all. No more papa. All I have are old memories. I can't deal with this.
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 inmyeyes
2003-08-13 15:53
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Oh my God, Ali, I am sooo sooo soo so very sorry. He souned so neato. I wish I could be there for you.. :(
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disintegrate
2003-08-13 20:02
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that made me cry, ali. i know what it's like to lose someone you love so dearly. i'm so sorry. my grandma passed away a couple years ago. i admire your strength. he sounds like a great person and i'm sure it meant a lot to him that you were there for him the whole time. i will always be here if you need someone to talk to, or just someone to listen. -hug- ♥ (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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fun_dork
2003-08-14 12:09
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Im not going to say I'm sorry, or that I know how you feel and what you're going through, because I really don't. I've lost all my great grandparents, but one great grandpa, and I never knew any of them, so I don't know what it feels like to lose someone so close to me. I do know how it is to live knowing that one of my closest relatives has cancer, and that I worry everyday that we'll get a phone call saying he died, and I haven't even seen him since I knew he was sick. At least your family obeyed that he didn't want to keep living on a machine, because what's the point to stay alive if your heart isn't the one that is really beating..
I do know what death is like, I had a really hard time after my uncle Brian died. I cried for weeks, I had random dreams about seeing him walk down the street, I would think I saw him everywhere I went. And then I had to remember that I would never actually see him again, and I would start to cry again.
I know that we haven't been talking much lately, and I'm sorry that I haven't been a great friend in the past like 5 months, because I really do miss you. And I truely love the person you are, and you make me happier. If you ever need anything I hope you know I'll always be here for you if you need me. You can just e-mail me, and I check it every night and morning, and during the day if I'm home and tell me when you need to talk or something, and I'll be on. I love you Ali.
-Jessyka(Reply to this) (Thread) |
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