This page is dedicated to the one person that really made me feel good to be myself. The one

person that I truly loved with all my heart. 'The one person that I'll miss the most.

 

I'll miss you Grandma! Sniff*

 

I was told a month ago ... Oh yea Matt your grandmothers in the hospital. Nothing serious. She'll be out in a few days. Ok well that’s a relief. She went in because her legs were hurting her and it was getting VERY hard for her to walk. She wasn't getting as much blood flow to the legs as she needed. The main veins were collapsing. She went in for a surgery to put stints in her legs. She went through the surgery just fine. But, things only got worse once she got out.

Her legs always hurt and you could get barely away from touching her legs and she'd scream in pain. Soon thereafter they realized the kidney isn't getting rid of the dye they used for x-rays as fast as it should. They say the kidney is failing. The next day her heart rate drops so. low they thought she was having a heart attack. I can hardly bear remembering the painful day. No one thought she was going to make it through the evening. They moved her to ICU. She didn't have a heart attack though. She wouldn't have survived one. Her kidney wasn't cleaning the potassium out of her blood. Potassium controls the heart rate. Too little speeds the heart up and too much drops the heart rate to almost nothing. They gave her some medication which would clear out the potassium. Once they got the heart rate up they let us know that we had to make a decision. She either needed to go under a surgery that she very well might not survive since it is a very difficult surgery especially on an older lady. Or we needed to put her on dialysis but, my grandma didn't want that so that was out of the question. The surgery consisted of putting a stint in the vein going into the kidney cause that vein had collapsed as well. But they had to enter through the arm and push it all the way through the vein to her kidney and if the vein burst anywhere that would have been it. The day before the surgery my grandma was looking and feeling so well that it seemed that she didn't belong in the hospital. She made it through the surgery but everything was different. She was in a lot more pain after that. 3 days later we were told the surgery didn't work. This was the day of my party. I tried to keep my mind off of her but I just couldn't. I still had it though. There was nothing else the doctors could do. She was going to die. A week of watching her get worse and worse in the hospital was so hard.

They eventually moved her to Hospice of Holland Home, where they pumped her full of so many pain pills that it makes her nerves virtually useless. When she went in we didn't think she would last much longer. She was defiantly a fighter. The first day she was there she could barely keep her eyes open for more than a few seconds to see who was talking to her. I held her hand for 4 hours letting her know I was there. She was there for just about a week before she died. The last few days her breathing was at the point of about one breath every 30 seconds. It took all her strength just to breath. I know she could hear me. I saw her try to open her eyes and partially get them open but not long enough.  She was trying hard to squeeze my hand.  It is so hard watching someone you love so dearly breath like that. Watching what seems to be a person’s last breath on every breath they take. You keep saying come on come on take that breath. You heart starts pounding. Her body started shaking because she knew she needed the breath but just couldn't take it. Then all of a sudden it goes and that kept happening for 2.5 days. The next day we called a priest in to pray for her, almost like she was being taken from me. That is probably the time that I cried the hardest. She was in a coma at the time. Then Friday the 14th at around 7 pm she passed away. It was hard. But now I think I sleep better knowing that she is in a better place and that I don't have to worry for her anymore. But still I can't believe she's gone. This Thanksgiving is going to be very hard for us.

 I’d like to thank everyone who prayed for her.  Since I am not much of a religious person I asked Kirsten to pry for her.  Thank you Kirsten for having a loving heart for listening to my sorrows and praying for me.

Thank you Nate for bringing me to visit my Grandma on your days off and being such a good friend.

Thank you Jared for finally being someone to force some sense into Joe and bringing him home to see his Grand Mother for the last time.