I don't even know where to start the past week or so has been insane! Last Saturday Sept. 27th I received a phone call from my mom that my Grandma who had been in the hospital all week was not doing good. I was at the zoo with my friend Hollie and her 3 kids and so after we got some lunch we headed home. Troy had an overnight campout Friday and had just come back from it and so I kissed him good-bye and headed to the hospital. I got there about 3:30 or 4pm and they were trying to put a drain in to drain 90 mL of urine. (thats almost a whole liter) So my Uncle Laron who had been there since 2 or 3 that morning came out and he caught me up on everything. Grandma got up to use the bathroom twice in the night and both times blacked out, so they called my Uncle who lives only a block away from the hospital and he got there to help. She then started vomiting and she hadn't eaten anything so it was just bile. They took her down for a CT scan to check a few things out and she threw up twice. Mind you that my Grandma had MRSA. So every time a doctor or a nurse or a visitor came you had to dress up in a gown and mask and gloves. By the time I got there they were very worried that they couldn't drain the urine. When I went in to finally see her I just knew it was her time to go. I stood there holding her hand and talking to her. She looked awful but she was still sharp as a whistle. The next couple of hours are a blur to me. We had to take her down for another CT scan and before they did they had to draw some blood. It took the poor guy 45 mins to find a vein (she could only have blood drawn from one arm b/c the other arm had something wrong with it) and she has very small veins. By the time we got down to CT her blood pressure had dropped considerably. She went in and they told us it would only be a 15 min procedure. So I called my parents and sister to update. Within a few mins the doctor came out and said he couldn't do it b/c her white blood count was too high and her blood pressure was too low. (later we found out she would have died if they had done this procedure to drain this blood clot thing)
So we took her upstairs and she did not take the travel well at all. Her blood pressure dropped, her hands were ice cold, we had about 4 or 5 nurses there working on her. My grandma's eyes closed and she was non responsive. A nurse came up to her face and was like... "Evelyn... Evelyn... can you hear me?" "stay with us Evelyn..." "Bethanys here... Laron's here..." I was speechless I didn't know what to say or do. This nurse opened her eyes and they were totally non responsive to hand movement and light. And I thought to myself this is it. She is gone. The nurse leaned to me and said start talking to her. We dont know if she can hear you but if she can she needs to hear your voice. So I started talking and singing and anything I could do to not start crying like an idiot. She eventually came through and started to respond. Again the next couple of hours are a blur. I called my parents and told them they needed to come NOW and my sister too. So they both started driving. My Aunt Lynette, Uncle Roger and Miranda came too. While they were there Grandma had another episode of slipping into a coma like state. The doctor was right out the door and he came rushing in along with many other nurses. They finally got an IV in her through her thumb and adminstered some medicine. She was throwing up every 20 mins or so and what tipped off this episode was I was standing there holding her hand and talking to her and I could hear her gurgling. She was chocking on her vomit b/c she was passed out. So I quickly leaned her up and then the nurses stepped in. THANK GOODNESS!
Amy got there I believe about 11pm. We sat and talked with Grandma and helped her throw up and called for a nurse everytime she needed the bed pan which was about every 30 mins or so. This new nurse came in about 11 too and she was HORRIBLE. I will spare the details b/c I could write 30 pages about her. I finally left about 1 am and Amy took the first shift until about 5 am. I was alone with Grandma for a while before Amy came and let me tell you it was so HARD! I just kept thinking... please dont die on my watch. Every beep, every sound, or no sound felt like an eternity. Amy stayed with her probably during the hardest hours. I came home and it took me forever to fall asleep. FInally after a few short hours of sleep I got up and Amy got a few minutes of sleep and then we headed off to the hospital. Again she had a horrible morning and was really struggling. My parents arrived 15 hours after they took off from Tucson. They drove the whole night. They got there about 11am and went right in to see her. My dad gave her a blessing and released her from this life when the time was right. A lot of us were in the room including a few cousins and all her children. She bore her sweet testimony of the Gospel and then started throwing up again. So most of us left the room. We stayed at the hospital most of the day until about 9 at night. I took my exhausted parents home and Amy left to go back to Boise. The family took shifts that night and again she had a horrible night. At noon on Monday she passed away. She passed away very peacefully the children had to make a decision to take her off life support but they did give her some medicine that she just passed away in her sleep. About 30 mins before she passed she looked straight up and said... "whose here?" and nobody had walked in the room. I think that was Grandpa coming to get her. It had been 10 years since they had been reunited.
The rest of the week was a HUGE whirlwind. My mom and Amy were the busy bees of the week. Without them we would never have made it through the week! We had to clean out Grandmas house and prepare my house for all my siblings to come. We had a viewing on Thursday night and the funeral and another viewing Friday. It was a beautiful day full of sunshine and even a rainbow. It was hard but we made it through! I am going to miss my grandma so much but i know she is in a better place.
