Recap of the last month

Okay, everybody. I'm back, well rested, getting things accomplished at work, and tanked up on affection from Bill. So, on to the long overdue update and recap of Grandma T's visit/health/funeral.

First off, Mom, Dad, Joe and I already had tickets to go visit Grandma T at the end of the month - ideally, I would have left yesterday for that visit. I discovered that it's MUCH easier to get a German driver's license if you trade in a Michigan driver's license, so I used that as a spring board to convince Mom to join me there on a visit. We hadn't seen Grandma T in a while - about five years for me, eight years for the rest of the family. Mom talked to her at least once a month and wrote her letters to keep her abreast of what was going on. Mom had started discussing the possibility of Grandma moving to Florida so she could keep an eye on her. We knew she was getting older, and starting to have the problems older people have. She was still living in the house Mom finished growing up in. All by herself. And even though she was very active in her politics and church, Mom was starting to get worried about how she was keeping up. So we were going to visit, see how she was doing, possibly start working on the process of moving her to Florida, visit other family in the area, change my license, maybe do some sight seeing.

Boy did those plans change! A few weeks after we finalized our plans, we found out Grandma T was in the hospital. Possibly because she'd had a stroke, nobody was sure. So Mom started having twice daily calls to her doctor's. Eventually we figured out she DID have a stroke. But that was okay, she was going through therapy and probably wouldn't be home until our planned visit anyway. Then she got jaundiced. After a couple of days and more tests, it was determined that she most likely had Pancreatic cancer and it had mastasized to her liver. She had a couple of options - surgery, chemo, etc., but a blood clot on her leg, concerns for her quality of life and her own wishes negated those options. She just wanted to come home and live her life peacefully. But she was definitely going to need help. And she was now going to be coming home before our visit. So Mom went up two weeks early and started preparing Grandma's house for her coming home. A week later - two weeks ago today - the ambulance brought Grandma home. She talked with the nurse who came by to help settle her in. A couple of friends brought by a fish dinner for her and Mom. They chatted a while and left. Mom went to go watch TV for a couple of hours. When she came back, Grandma was gone. She lasted nearly 12 hours after she came home. She came home to make peace and be comfortable in her house of nearly forty years.

Mom woke me up at 7am my time and told me Grandma had just passed. Immediately I got on the phone trying to change my ticket. I had to be with my Mommy. And have that last bit of closure. I arrived Sunday evening, my Dad got there Saturday evening. And the next week was a whirlwind. We had to go through everything in the house - find photos of her for the funeral, an outfit for the funeral, papers, start cleaning the house, figuring out the rules of her estate, etc. And of course there was the viewing - two days - and then the funeral.

I'll write more about the last week and a half later. I'm going to go veg in front of the TV with my new DVD's - Season One of Roswell and Nikita.

Posted by Jinglelady at March 26, 2004 10:42 PM | Family