Granny

So, in case you haven't read in my last couple of blogs, my grandmother has been in the hospital since last Monday. We've always been very close-- closer than I ever was to either of my parents. I love her so much! She's been such a big part of my life. When I was little, my parents would drop me off at her house every day while they worked. They wouldn't pick me up until late at night. I don't remember being with my parents when I was little-- I remember staying with my Granny. She taught me how to swim, sew, cook, shop, and clean house. When I was growing up, my parents could never afford school clothes for my brother and me, so my grandparents bought them for us. For years, we've talked on the phone 2-4 times a week. I've visited her 3 times in the last few months (she's 6 hours away).She's 63 and she's been battling cancer for the last 9 years.

In 2001, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember when my grandparents told us. We had just moved to Florida. They waited until we were all moved in. They called my dad and told him one day. It was the first time I ever saw my dad cry. It was his first Sunday preaching at the new church we were at. Immediately after the service, my dad and I drove to Tennessee. That's a reeeeally long drive from FL. He started to fall asleep at the wheel, so somewhere around Chattanooga we stopped at a motel. It was the nastiest hotel I'd ever been in. They didn't even change the sheets from the last guest. There were cigarette ashes and hair in the sink. Flies were everywhere. We didn't really spend the night-- we more or less took an hour nap and got back on the road. We got to the hospital and I got to see Granny right before they wheeled her off to surgery. She always told me that my being there gave her the endurance to hang on. She had a mastectomy & went through several rounds of chemotherapy followed by daily chemo pills for 5 years. In 2006, she was "cancer free".

Sometime during the summer of 2008, she woke up and couldn't talk & could barely move. She looked around for a minute and realized she had to get up somehow so my grandpa could call an ambulance. They'd been sleeping in separate bedrooms because his snoring kept her awake at night (I've heard it-- talk about freight train). She dragged herself into the hallway, where he found her. That was the scariest of everything that happened. He called me and said she was Life Flighted to the University of Kentucky hospital. She was there for a couple of days and they did tests, but couldn't figure out what it was. They said it looked like a seizure (definitely not a stroke) and sent her home. It happened again within 24 hours. That time, they took her to the University of Tennessee hospital and did more tests. They realized her skull was bleeding, which was putting pressure on her brain. They had to drill into her skull to let the blood come out. The surgeon joked that she was hard headed because his drill bit broke during the surgery. We prayed and prayed. It was hard on her, but she pulled through.

They ran test after test and said that the PET scan shower had "hot spots" in her bones. She started losing weight-- about 30 lbs in just a few months. She was always achy. Her back and leg bones hurt all the time. I went to visit her for Mother's Day 2009. The day after mother's day, she had a doctor's appointment. I went with her. Her doctor told her that her cancer had returned and that she needed chemo again. It was so upsetting to see her cry. They said this time she has Myelofibrosis. I went back to their house and looked it up online. I found info on the Mayo Clinic's website. It said this form of cancer is very rare and aggressive and there is no cure. Her doctor put her on chemo again and did radiation on her sternum. It was really hard on her. She'd already lost so much weight. Chemo makes you so sick and what little you can stomach tastes like metal. She was sick and tired all the time. She was in pain all the time. She couldn't be out in the sun because the chemo destroyed the nerves in her skin and the sun made her break out in itchy hives. They were going to dry a sort of "chemo lite" that wouldn't make all her hair fall out. It thinned, but she used Rogaine and just wore her wigs when she didn't feel like fooling with it. About a month ago, she had another PET scan that showed no change and her doctor put her on a really strong chemo concoction. She didn't tolerate it well at all.

On Thursday, November 19th, I called to see how she was doing and she sounded just awful. She said her memory had really been bothering her (bad sign). She repeated the same story to me about 4 times in our 20 min conversation and she sounded really sleepy. Friday, November 20th, she had to go to the hospital for a blood transfusion. Usually, transfusions perk her right up, but not this time. The next day, we did a video Skype chat. She looked and sounded so tired. Her sister Betty and her brother Don were there with her to cheer her up. On Monday, I called again to check on her and they didn't answer their home phone. I called Papaw's cell and he said she was in the hospital. She had gotten so weak over the weekend that she could barely stand. Then she got to the point where she couldn't make her legs move. She had a CAT scan, an MRI, and a spinal tap. We're still waiting on the results of the spinal tap.

Today, he told me that she might not even make it to Monday or she might make it a few more weeks; no one knows. But her time is coming. Soon. I've known this for a long time. The last time I visited her, she told me she was ready. She said she's lived a full life and she's tired of suffering. She was so worried that we wouldn't visit Papaw anymore... that would never happen!

I thank God so much for the blessing she's been to me and for all the time we've had together. I thank God for letting her hang on as long as she has. She's a fighter through and through. She NEVER complained--ever. She'd always say, "That's life. We've all got to go sometime." I don't know what my life would be like without her. The saddest part is going to be picking up the phone to call her and then remembering she's not there anymore. But I have so much comfort in knowing that when she passes on, she'll be in Heaven with God. She'll have a perfect body. She won't be in pain anymore. She'll be peaceful.

She's a wonderful, loving person and I've been so tremendously blessed to have her as a grandmother!