(no subject)

Today was an emotional roller coaster. I had a restless night of surreal and scary dreams, so I didn't feel rested at all.  Work was ok, I was in the Racine office all day. Pretty quiet, no cool patients. Quite the opposite. Whiny ones that make me feel like shit by greeting me with 'who are you? I thought I was working with so-and-so today'. Thanks. That's a great start. I had a strange feeling in my stomach and by 4:30 I got a phone call from my sister. My Grandfather, who had a knee replacement surgery 3 weeks ago followed by inpatient rehab, had a close call with a so-called heart attack that turned out to be neumonia on Sunday, took a turn for the worse today. My sister told me to get to St. Mary's as soon as I could because Grandpa is going to leave us soon. I went to the hospital as soon as I could. My co-workers were really cool about it and took over my caseload for the rest of the day. My entire family was there. Uncles, Aunts and Cousins I haven't seen in years were all crammed into Grandpa's tiny room. The nurses called a code blue around 3 pm, I got there at 4:45. He wasn't opening his eyes and was curling his legs up and down. He has a do-not-recesitate order, which means if his heart stops they're not allowed to do CPR or anything like that. I did everything I could to make him comfortable, checked out his various tubes like a good little physical therapist. We stood around for close to 5 hours watching over him. We were told he was going to go in a few hours but his stats stabilized. His blood pressure returned to normal, good blood oxygen levels and his face slowly came back to normal from being almost purple. He opened his eyes now and again, responding to our simple questions. I don't know if he's going to come out of this or not. It's hard to say. My whole family is exhausted trying to see him through this. My poor Grandmother has been working so hard trying to take care of him. My Dad hasn't gotten hardly any sleep between taking care of those two and my mom. I hope everyone gets some rest tonight and we'll see what tomorrow brings. I pray that Grandpa either recovers so we can take him home, or if this is his time to go, he goes peacefully without any more pain or suffering. I wish I could have done more for him before but I was too selfish and busy to take extra time out to drive to Racine and see him. I could have done more. But there's nothing I can do about that now. I'm here for him now. I cooled his forehead with a washcloth, kept his mouth moist with some water and a special sponge. I did my best to explain all the numbers and lines on his monitor to my family. That's all I can do right now. I just want everything to be all right. I want my Grandfather to be okay.

(no subject)

Today was an emotional roller coaster. I had a restless night of surreal and scary dreams, so I didn't feel rested at all.  Work was ok, I was in the Racine office all day. Pretty quiet, no cool patients. Quite the opposite. Whiny ones that make me feel like shit by greeting me with 'who are you? I thought I was working with so-and-so today'. Thanks. That's a great start. I had a strange feeling in my stomach and by 4:30 I got a phone call from my sister. My Grandfather, who had a knee replacement surgery 3 weeks ago followed by inpatient rehab, had a close call with a so-called heart attack that turned out to be neumonia on Sunday, took a turn for the worse today. My sister told me to get to St. Mary's as soon as I could because Grandpa is going to leave us soon. I went to the hospital as soon as I could. My co-workers were really cool about it and took over my caseload for the rest of the day. My entire family was there. Uncles, Aunts and Cousins I haven't seen in years were all crammed into Grandpa's tiny room. The nurses called a code blue around 3 pm, I got there at 4:45. He wasn't opening his eyes and was curling his legs up and down. He has a do-not-recesitate order, which means if his heart stops they're not allowed to do CPR or anything like that. I did everything I could to make him comfortable, checked out his various tubes like a good little physical therapist. We stood around for close to 5 hours watching over him. We were told he was going to go in a few hours but his stats stabilized. His blood pressure returned to normal, good blood oxygen levels and his face slowly came back to normal from being almost purple. He opened his eyes now and again, responding to our simple questions. I don't know if he's going to come out of this or not. It's hard to say. My whole family is exhausted trying to see him through this. My poor Grandmother has been working so hard trying to take care of him. My Dad hasn't gotten hardly any sleep between taking care of those two and my mom. I hope everyone gets some rest tonight and we'll see what tomorrow brings. I pray that Grandpa either recovers so we can take him home, or if this is his time to go, he goes peacefully without any more pain or suffering. I wish I could have done more for him before but I was too selfish and busy to take extra time out to drive to Racine and see him. I could have done more. But there's nothing I can do about that now. I'm here for him now. I cooled his forehead with a washcloth, kept his mouth moist with some water and a special sponge. I did my best to explain all the numbers and lines on his monitor to my family. That's all I can do right now. I just want everything to be all right. I want my Grandfather to be okay.