My grandmother is in the hospital again. The difference is that this time she is not going to be coming home. If she is released, my mother and aunt are taking my advice from the last time she was hospitalized and going to put her into a managed care facility, ie Nursing home.

My grandmother should have been put into one years ago. SheÂ’s been failing in health for a long time now. She has diabetes and other medical issues that cause her chronic pain. A year and a half ago she sold her home and moved in with my aunt because she couldnÂ’t live on her own anymore due to chronic health issues. She refused to take care of her self, follow doctorÂ’s orders and do her therapies. She continued to get worse. My mother and aunt felt it that if grandma were living with my aunt, she would have better supervision and take care of herself.

They where wrong. She would buy candy and hide it in the house, when my aunt was gone, she would eat it, thus not taking care of her diabetes. She still didnÂ’t follow doctorÂ’s orders and refused to do her therapies when my aunt asked her to. She just continued to get worse and worse. She can hardly walk, she can barely bend her knees and she has a form of ParkinsonÂ’s disease that is has almost completely taken over her ability to do anything on her own. The sad thing is that if she had just followed doctorÂ’s orders years ago they know she wouldnÂ’t be anywhere near as bad as she is now.

When she was brought into the hospital a couple of days ago, over an infection she has that if she had followed doctorÂ’s order she wouldnÂ’t have had, it was finally determined that she can not go back to my aunts. My aunt just cannot be there all day every day to take care of her, as she needs. My grandma is not happy with this decision. She keeps telling my mother and aunt that she feels she can go home. Fortunately, my mother and aunt disagree with her.

I called and talked to my grandma the other night, I canÂ’t visit because she is in the infectious disease ward and I donÂ’t dare expose my kids to nasty bugs floating around up there. When I spoke with my grandma, she sounded like she had a stroke. My mother, aunt and the hospital staff convinced me that she hadnÂ’t itÂ’s just the medication, pain, infection and ParkinsonÂ’s effecting her speech. This is not the woman I remember fondly from my childhood. I hate seeing her this way, and I donÂ’t like hearing about her this way.

We know she wonÂ’t get better. She may live for many more years, or she may be dead as I write this. IÂ’ve never had any illusions that IÂ’m a good person, but how bad does it make me that IÂ’m hoping and wishing for the later?

Posted by: Contagion at 12:39 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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