I have been sitting here staring at this blank box on my computer screen attempting to begin to jot down the rest of my thoughts on this summer and am having the hardest time. ..
My grandmother remained at Gaston Memorial Hospital for 5 more days. Each day, one of us had to stay overnight with her and someone had to constantly be at her side to keep her safe. My Aunt M has a home about an hour away and she was amazing during this time- orchestrating everyone and ensuring that Happy was looked after at all hours. These days sort of blur in my mind- Happy was sometimes coherent and other times completely out of it. One night in particular, I remember sitting there after having fought her to keep her in bed, and she seemed to be asleep. I looked at her closer and realized her eyes were wide open, her pupils pinpoint and locked on the ceiling. I immediately assessed her breathing and airway, to find that she was fine in that respect. And so I continued to watch her as she rested. A few minutes later, her right hand began to move upward toward the ceiling as if she were grabbing something. That was the end of the calm. After that she thrashed and cried and was absolutely terrified for hours.
Around 5am that morning, she looked at me and said, "I can feel it when it comes over me. It makes me reach for God." It was at that moment that ALZ became the most terrifying disease I can think of. My gorgeous grandmother was there underneath all of the haze and confusion and had to sit there and allow her illness to take hold.
One afternoon, I snuck Klo into the hospital and brought her to visit Happy. That little baby girl was possibly the only person in this world who could orient Happy at this point. As soon as I walked in the room, Happy smiled and reached for baby girl. Unlike most babies, Klo reached back for her and sat there on Happy's bed giggling and playing. That afternoon will always be one I remember- and I can't wait to one day tell Chloe Quay how she single handedly helped us all through this difficult time- our own little angel.
Happy had a slew of medical conditions that made her broken hip and ALZ difficult to treat. She had atrial fibrillation and she was 90 years old- a bitty 90 year old at that. By this time she didn't weigh more than 90 pounds- because of all of this, doctors were constantly treating her dehydrated body and her high heart rates. I knew the best move at this point was to take her home. At age 90 in the condition she was in- I found it morally inappropriate to continue treating her ailments. Her husband and POA did not agree and allowed all of these interventions to take place. Her body was attempting to pass and her sitting in that bed meant her release from this disease was being prolonged.
She was discharged on a Tuesday and immediately accepted into the Garden Wing of Covenant Village where doors were locked and she could have round the clock care. We decorated her room in her gorgeous antiques in an effort to surround her by items to remind her of home. One of us stayed each and every night because she was so frightened. This lasted about 2 weeks. My poor father and aunt were exhausted- and other than myself and a hired caregiver (Marie was an absolute angel and Godsend) they trusted no one to stay the night with Happy.
One morning Daddy was with Happy when she began to scream and writhe in pain. Her legs were hurting her so badly she could not handle it. This went on for about 3 hours- no one on the nursing staff believed it to be a big issue. Daddy said it was the most horrible thing he has ever watched. Using his own judgement, he called 911 and had Happy transported to the hospital, where she sat in the ED for 4 hours in constant pain. Worried about a deep vein thrombosis, MDs immediately ordered a lower leg doppler study for her, which came back negative. She was admitted to the hospital so that MDs could attempt to figure out what and how she was in so much pain.
Pain medication was not something MDs felt comfortable giving someone as frail as Happy- and so she had to suffer through and take low dose narcotics that did not even take the edge off the pain. A day passed- and MDs found nothing. Then early one morning when I was staying the night with her, a new MD I had never met walked in at 0500. She ordered a second doppler series and by noon we had our answer- Happy had developed a huge arterial occlusion in both of her hips- meaning her legs were slowly but surely dying.
Hearing this I immediately knew there was only one option- up the dosage of pain medication and make her comfortable. Unable to find her husband so he could hear the options, Aunt M, my father and I decided that we would not mention the other option to her husband, knowing that is what he would opt for- surgically removing Happy's legs.
And so began the days of watching my grandmother's legs turn blue then black. Watching her toes turn wither and fall off. Repositioning her legs that were hurting her so terribly ever 3 minutes, knowing that moving the blanket at all might mean ripping sheets of skin off her legs or tearing off toes. Watching the terrified and pained look on my father's face every time she attempted to move. I've seen this in the hospital- but never to this point. I don't know how her body took it for as long as she did.
Finally we did the impossible and convinced Happy's husband that she was not going to come back from this. She was discharged home and into hospice care after 4 gruesome days in the hospital. I knew she did not have long- and so I advocated for a morphine drip to be initiated to mask her pain and let her slip away peacefully- morphine reduces respiration rates and can make imminent death occur slightly faster and less painfully.
These were the waiting days. Waiting for Happy to stop fighting. Waiting for her to let go and be with God. Waiting for her husband to accept her illness and realize that she was indeed soon going to leave us...that she needed to. Everyday brought a new battle. Some days she refused to eat and we would think, ok this is it. She will go soon. Other days she would eat a half carton of yogurt and actually speak to you for a moment before passing back out. One Monday night, I got a phone call from my mother saying that Happy's respiration rate had dropped to 5 a minute and that she was having increasing spells of apnea.
The doctor's said she would not make it an hour. I was in Charleston at the time, preparing for my work week and felt helpless and terrified knowing my family needed me and that there was no way I could get home in time to say goodbye. That night I waited and waited for the call that never came- and come morning Happy was eating her yogurt again.
This was the week of Happy's body actively dying. When one is in the process of actively passing away, their respirations diminish and do not come back to normal, their temperature goes up, they may have moments of lucidity, and more often than not, their pain goes away. Over the following week Happy went through every single last one of these steps. And yet she held on.
That Friday night, mommy, daddy and her husband (who had yet to really grasp that Happy was indeed passing away from us) were staying with her when she looked at them and said, "I am ready to go to heaven now." MO grabbed Happy's hand and told her "Darling, it is okay for you to leave us. We will miss you so much, but we know we will see you again." Daddy held her other and told her "Mama, its ok."
She passed within 5 minutes of that exchange. Even in death, my grandmother was ever the southern lady and refused to do something without the go ahead from her husband and beloved son.
