A day with Gram

"Is she breathing?" "Yes, she's awake and alert and in a lot of pain, she can't get up and says she hit her head." "Paramedics are on their way, please don't move her and be ready to flag them down." The shortest 41 second phone calls, the most painful 2 minute wait while someone you love is in agony.

2 minutes, 41 seconds on top of 12 hours laying on the floor in pain, unable to get help. I can't begin to imagine what that feeling was like. On the week of my 28th birthday I found my grandmother, who I act as a care attendant for on the floor twice. The Sunday after my weekend away, then the Thursday after she was released.

As a caretaker I ensure her medicines are filled, food is made, her bills taken care of and that she's happy and healthy. She lost her life partner, my grandfather, seven years ago. Dementia took his smile, his memories and her heart. My aunts and uncles sent him to a nursing home he never got to leave again alive, he wasn't permitted to even walk around. From that day, the day they sent him away I adamantly refused to allow that to happen again, they didn't want anything to do with us and that was for the better. Putting him there agreeing to give him drugs he refused until he couldn't any longer, part of me resented them; that did after all kill him.

He was 91 when he passed, the drugs caused his organs to seize up, they refused to record that of course 'natural causes' at 91. However, that heartache did not subside, a few months later she moved to a new housing for elderly and we got her a cat, a shy dark-torti she called Baby. While I went between grief and work I constantly visited and tended to her.

Six years later, just before the beginning of the pandemic, the cat scratched her violently. She became afraid of the Baby she raised... I brought her to a shelter for a new family, heart heavy. One month later on a weekend I worked overnight... Grandma fell, in a parking lot her call button didn't work. Three hours later she got herself up and inside and called emergency services. Two hours past that at 3am I got a call from the emergency room of a religious hospital nearby... She was incoherent and finally identified from being a Jane Doe.

From February until May she was confined to a psych ward, an elderly ward for mental help that doesn't exist. If you call for that ward, there is no directory, no connection. They stripped her of medicines she needed, stripped her of rights and broke her slowly. Anyone who went through the foster system in the earlier part of the 1900s would know, that thing weren’t any better off. Abuse was rampant, and my grandmother still wakes at night screaming from the abuses from when she was young. Being under constant surveillance is one sure way to break her fastest, and they never let her out of their sights, until they decided she was ‘seeking attention.’

One month later COVID restrictions barred visitors. She could barely make phone calls, in April I received word she was transferred to a big city hospital. She had a seizure, now I was able to see her and my heart sank, pale as a sheet and looking ill she had no joy in her eyes. She took a tumble, had a seizure and the IV ripped out of her arm, I was informed they only noticed when her roommate screamed. She was transferred up to the big city the next day, however they weren’t that much better off. They had a nurse sitting in to monitor her, but they wouldn’t assist her with anything or talk, just watch. Her medications switched again, being out of psychiatrics she was given her diabetic, blood pressure and other medications; They then added insulin to her.

I truly was prepared to raise hell, as you could expect, I shared some not so kind words to the doctor in charge of her case. Changing medications so drastically upsets the chemical balance of anything, let alone the body of a 76 year old who is not in the best health. A sweet little old lady who hides her fears behind a smile, who doesn’t ask for anything else but to go home because she hates being in a hospital. A woman who could sew and knit a circle around you without breaking a sweat, started having tremors so vicious you’d assume she had Parkinsons. Yet they ignored it, and stopped contacting us.

A week later, when I went in to visit her, they told me she was discharged. Discharged in a big city, with no cane, no wallet, no shoes or phone. Six in the morning, and a seventy-six year old missing. It took two hours for them to figure out that ‘discharge’ meant ‘transferred’ back to the local hospital. We spent eighty dollars getting from the major city to the minor, and refused to leave until they allowed us to visit. Teddy Bear in hand my father and I went to see her, and reassure her that she would be cleared soon. We were told that she would be kept on the proper medication, that they were going to help her with physical therapy and that she would be home in a few weeks.

The next month, exactly six weeks later, prepared to wreak havoc I spoke to the social worker. If they didn't release her I was prepared to file charges for abuse. Just because the pandemic was at its height, there was no reason to keep her isolated and endangered. They did not keep their word, they altered her medications again, they did not help her with physical therapy, and then to add insult to injury they gave her something that she has an allergic reaction to. I got a phone call from my grandmother and I went over, knowing I wouldn’t be allowed in, I needed to speak to her nurse. As someone who spends hours on end with her, I can read my grandmother’s signs very well. Like a mother can tell when their child is unwell, scared or hurt; A granddaughter who takes care of their grandmother can see signs that others will miss. I heard it in her voice, I knew something was wrong, so I went in. I informed the nurses on duty that my grandmother was not doing well, that I didn’t know exactly what was wrong, but she was going to shut down or get hurt.

So of course, that warning was ignored. I got a call the following afternoon, she took another fall in the hallway on her way back from dinner. I brought my father in that evening to meet with the social worker with me, accountability to reign me in, I was going to get her discharged one way or another.

We were allowed to visit with her, and at dinner I ended up shoving a thing of lemon sherbet in the face of the same nurse who ignored me and ask what it was. Lemon is something that causes my grandmother to black out at best, and they served it to her, knowing it was something she could not have. Even disregarding the fact they served food without accounting that she had no teeth, they ordered things she couldn’t and shouldn’t eat.

It took another few weeks for them to release her to us. From Valentine’s weekend to Mother’s day she was locked away, for another month even while I tended to her, she wouldn’t meet my eyes. After all, I was the bad granddaughter who let her stay locked away for so long, I didn’t come when she needed me, because I didn’t want to wake her up at 2AM after my shift. It took weeks for her to recover her smile, but the tremors still go on.

Taking care of a family member is a balancing act, you have to balance what they need and what can be done. Dishes, laundry, trash, cooking, bathing, helping change, bringing to doctors appointments and of course playing games, giving hugs and cuddling up to a grandparent are all very important tasks. Yet finding the balance of work and play when all she wants to do is play can be fun, or trying to coax her to an appointment aiming to find the cause of tremors and fix it.

To this day she sees nurses, has physical therapy and sees a plethora of doctors, but I still walk the line of care taker and granddaughter. I constantly hear ‘She’s lucky to have you’ ‘You’re a wonderful granddaughter’ and I cannot help but to wonder, why? I’m just taking care of the one who took care of me, why is it so praiseworthy? How is it that such a simple act of love is inspirational? It’s my story, our story and I won’t let it end until it’s time. No matter how many doctors, hospitals or medications need to change to find the solution.