My grandmom loves chocolate. That's one of the things I came to discover when I moved down with her. First off, we quickly discovered a hoard of chocolate in her closet in her room. My grandpop was a diabetic, so he certainly wasn't going to be helping her to eat all of it. And that hoard of chocolate disappeared a lot faster than you would expect chocolate to disappear from a 78 year old woman's closet, without the help of the seven grandkids.
And there can never be enough chocolate. The other week when my mom was watching her, my mom looked out front to see her with her cane and purse walking back down the street. She'd been on her way to CVS with her coupons, but realized it probably wasn't a very good idea. I've decided to start hiding the chocolate coupons before she can even see them so she won't yell at me to go to the store to get it everytime she has a coupon.
Now we always know when my grandmom has been eating chocolate. She gets this dark ring around her mouth and it took me a few weeks to finally figure out what it was- chocolate sticking to dry lips, whether from a calcium chew or her secret stash, we knew for certain it was the chocolate.
My grandmom's mouth is most certainly one of the hazard zones in our home. It skeebs me out to even think about it. Whether it's the hair around her lips (yes, the hair has grown back), the chocolate ring, or the other particles of food that have somehow found their way attatched to the dry skin, to say her mouth is gross is an understatement.
And so, I found myself in a bit of a dilemna last Wednesday when I found her and my neighbor (who is from Poland) sitting out on the sidewalk. I'd just gotten out of the shower and had blow dryed my hair when i went to check on my grandmom. I found her sitting in Mrs. Normi's lap at the bottom of the stairs out front. It was an odd sight to see these two elderly European women sitting on the sidewalk, and so I went on to investigate. It turned out Mrs. Normi (our God send) had seen my grandmom getting the mail from the mailbox and had come over the say hello (which she hadn't done in quite awhile). When she arrived at the front porch where my grandmom was standing, my grandmom passed out into her arms. And so this is where I come into the story. I try to quickly assess the situation and run across the street to get my neighbor Shirley who is a nurse. I knock calmly. I knock a little harder. I know she's probably sleeping because she's worked the last two nights, so I knock a little harder than before. I run back across the street and reassess the situation. I realize that my grandmom does not look like she is breathing, and looks very similar to a time before when she'd passed out at our dinner table. That time my dad had given her CPR. I did not want to have to do that. So I ran back across the street yelling for Shirley (even running inside their house- hey I was desperate- you haven't seen my grandmom's mouth!) And so this was all to no avail and I ran back across the street (I have no clue how long this all took but it felt like hours), and I told Mrs. Normi to call 9-11 and I began compressions followed by- yes- mouth to mouth. Yum. I guess sometimes you have to do things you just don't want to do. It was one of those times. And yes, my grandmom did begin to come back after that and after the 9-11 guy had me pinching her and elevating her feet.
Her first words? She needed to make a cream puff cake. She'll have a list of things to do until her dying day, I swear.
She's been home since Sunday. She had a blocked artery and has heart disease so they put her on a new medication. They said this may happen again without catherization (something we don't want to have to do). Oh, aren't I lucky? Yikes!
My dad and I have decided that God keeps sending me up to the hospital with her because I'm going to end up meeting some rich, godly, handsome doctor up there and fall in love. Well, it's needless to say, I now try to look my best whenever I go up to visit her. But I'm glad she's home now, and no, I didn't meet my future husband doctor yet, but there's still time.
But now I'm taking the weekend off and going camping- woo hoo!
