Snippets From the Weekend

Funny moments:

Grandpa (as he jumps up and runs for the door): Did you hear someone knocking???

Me (in confusion): No? Grandpa, that was thunder...

In KFC:

Uncle: Hey, who's that guy in the picture over there?

Me: Colonel Sanders.

Uncle: And where's he from?

Me: ....Kentucky...?

Uncle: Oh boy, you're good! (laughing at his own joke)

Ha..haha..nice try, uncle... :P

___________________________________

Blurry, but he was trying to pick up a peanut so he didn't have to lean over to get it.  Silly kitty!

Harry likes peanuts. Om nom.

Pretty boy. :)

___________________________________

Grandma is still hanging in there, though the doctor said on Wednesday that she probably only had about 48 hours left. She's very weak and exhausted and sleeps most of the time. She opens her eyes but can't really seem to focus on any one thing, and we're not sure if she sees us or not. She knows we're there; she moves toward sounds and sometimes tries to speak to us (usually in protest to being moved or awakened or fed...or sometimes when we leave).

Everyone keeps saying how she's doing better some days and not others.  I honestly couldn't see a difference from day to day while I was there this weekend.  Sometimes she eats more than at other meals, sometimes her eyes are open more...but those are such tiny things that it doesn't seem like a big deal to me anymore.  She's constantly drugged up because of the pain, but she's still in pain when she's moved.  I really just wish it could be over so she doesn't have to go through this anymore.  I don't know if that makes me a bad person or not..it kind of feels like it, but it's only because I hate seeing her go through this.

____________________________________

It's less than a month until I go back to school!  Before this day is over, I hope to have all the little last minute details taken care of.  Books ordered, loan stuff (ugh) taken care of, some stuff for my senior project prepared so that I can get right into the experiment part of it when I get back...   Yeah, I've got my to-do list next to me right now.  I'm hoping to finish it and be able to throw it in the trash by tonight.

Wordless Wednesday - Love

Horse Therapy

Facebook status: That thing about horses being able to sense how you feel?  Yeah it's true. Orion was extra lovey and attached to me today.

I got some time to myself out at the barn for the first forty-five minutes or so this evening.  Grandpa dropped me off there and I went straight out to the creek (which finally has water again) where the horses were all standing in the shade.  Orion came to me almost immediately and stood there quietly while I hugged him and stuff.  At that point that was all I wanted to do, and he kept turning around and nuzzling my shoulder - weird for him because normally that's his excuse to scratch his face..."Oooh I love youuu...now let me use you as my scratching post, please..."  For once it was actually a genuine nuzzle.  And he kept it up most of the evening.  I turned to walk away, and he walked with me (with no halter on yet).  He even followed me into the creek, even though he normally hates actually stepping into it.

For the entire evening, he tried to stay close to me, and when I went out to catch Kit, he nearly had a panic attack.  He actually whinnied after me until I came back. O.o  Then as soon as he saw me come around the corner of the barn, it was all little whickering noises until I got Kit situated and went back to him.  As soon as I reached him, he was all nuzzle-y and frantic for me to stay there.  He seriously didn't want me to leave him, even to go back into the barn for a second.  Oh yeah.  I felt special. :)

I noticed when I was brushing him that he had this monstrosity on the inside of his hind left leg.  No clue how he did it.  It looked way worse than it was; most of what you see is congealed blood.  Once it was cleaned up (bottom picture), it looked much better.  He wasn't favoring the leg or anything, which is why I didn't notice it sooner.  It only really seemed to bother him when I was cleaning it with the sponge (which also could be attributed to the cold hose water) and spreading medicine (Corona ointment) onto it.  He picked up the leg and moved it and turned to look at me inquiringly, but that was the only reaction he had to me messing with it.

Chels and I went for a forty-five minute ride when she got off work. 

I got to experience Orion's bucking again.  My fault this time.  After leading him through the mounting block four times and having him run out four times, I finally got tired of it and just jumped on as quick as I could when he started to walk away.  Ooops.  He bucked a few times, and my momentum from the jump + his bucking carried me to his other side, where I clung like a monkey until he finally stopped.  Chels said she thought for sure I was coming off, but I somehow stayed there, half hanging off his side, with my back twisted in a way it is definitely not made to go.  Once he settled and I pulled myself back onto his back, I promptly dropped the reins on his neck and stretched my back out again.  Ooof.  It hurt.  In the process of hanging on for dear life, I ripped the little sort-of-but-not-really-a-pommel-replacement loop of nylon half off of my bareback pad.  Ooops.  Well, at least it bit the dust while doing its job keeping me from biting the dust.  I mean come on, bright side is, it got the job done, and I didn't come off...and the bareback pad stayed mostly in place.

But back to the real ride.  We just went up the road and to a pond, where the dogs that came with us had a swim.  We turned around and came right back because it had taken so long to get there.  It shouldn't have, but Orion is a wimp when it comes to leading.  And we made him lead.  So naturally, everything turned into a monster that was going to eat him.  And he used it as an excuse to try to turn around and go home almost every time.  So we ended up turning a lot of circles to get back to the right direction. -_-

Oh, and did I mention that not only was he afraid of the dogs he sees every day, but that he also had to deal with a bright red trailer thing, shiny, spinning fence around a garden..one on each side of him, and a hose lying across his path?  Oh yeah.  We had fun with those.  

He was originally wary of the trailer the first time he saw it, but after sniffing it, he decided it was okay.  The fence didn't bother him as much as the hose did, until we turned to come back, and he got far enough over the hill to see the fence again at the bottom, which was when he promptly grunted and jumped straight up in the air for a second.  Then he just hurried back down the hill until I made him stop and look at the fence again, from a safe eight feet or so away.  Upon passing the trailer again on the way back, he suddenly decided it was a monster again and skittered sideways and eyeballed it from the other side of the road as he tried to side-step past it.  I made him walk up to it and stand next to it until he settled down, and then everything was hunky-dory again!  We continued home in peace after that.

Once we got back, we had a little bit of fun just playing around with the horses in the paddock.  The apple trees next to the paddock are the perfect height for picking apples from horseback...and for the horses to pick their own apples. Orion figured out that he could be fed while I was on his back and was the happiest horse ever. :)

It was a really good, relaxing, fun evening after this weekend.  I really needed it.

Update on Grandma

I've been with my grandpa for five days now. We visit my grandma twice a day, every day. He used to come see her every evening, rain or shine, but since she was admitted to the hospital and now is declining steadily every day, he comes in the afternoon and evening both.

She was still fairly alert on Thursday, but every day when we've arrived, she's been a little bit worse. She's groggier because of the pain killers they've had to start giving her, and she doesn't want to eat anything now. There's one aide that has been her favorite all three years that she's been here at Rosewood, and she's been able to get her to eat more than anyone else. Today for lunch she had more than I've seen her eat for the past two days.

The people here are amazing. Most of them are friendly and patient to us and her. Kim, her favorite, goes above and beyond all expectations to make her comfortable and keep her spirits up, especially now.

She mostly just sleeps now. We can get her to wake up for a few seconds, long enough to let her know we're here. She seems to sleep peacefully the rest of the time.

It's probably only a matter of days now, and I have to go home, so today is probably the last day I will see her.

Grandma

"Grandma always made you feel she had been waiting to see just you all day and now the day was complete." - Marcy DeMaree

It seems like so much has been changing lately.  Some things good, some bad.  I don't always know how to react or to wrap my mind around it.

I'm writing right now because I just got news that my grandma, the woman that I basically shared a second home with growing up, is not going to be with us for very much longer.

Last night, I sat here at home, unable to go to her or talk to her, and thinking about how much different things are going to be when she's gone...

She's always been a huge part of my life, for as long as I can remember.  I spent huge chunks of time at her house with she and my grandpa when I was little, and though middle and high school band cut into that time as I got older, I was still there almost every weekend that I didn't have a football game or band competition to go to.  Then after graduation, I was all set to go to A-B, in the same town where she and grandpa lived.  I promised them that I would still come to stay, but that, you know, I would probably have things going on with school and with the friends that I planned on making there.  It wasn't going to be like it had been, every or every other weekend.

Then, a week before I was set to move in to my new dorm, my grandma had a stroke.  Grandpa had been outside mowing for a little while, and when he came in for a drink, she couldn't talk or move her right side.  She was in Morgantown in hospitals and rehab for a month or so after that, and I spent countless evenings after classes, when I didn't have labs, over there with my grandpa and uncle visiting with her.  They went over every evening, and I went when I could.  Eventually she was moved back to Philippi to the hospital there, and from there to Grafton.  Finally at Rosewood Center we found somewhere that had not only great people to take care of her, but somewhere that had an amazing rehab facility.

The doctors had said she would probably never walk again.  Within a couple of months after moving to Rosewood, just four or five months after the stroke, they had her walking with a walker.  She needed help to get up out of her wheelchair, but she was doing the rest on her own.  Everyone was amazed and ecstatic over the progress she was able to make.  She pretty much blew the doctors' predictions out of the water.

Later on the next year, she had a second stroke.  It set her back, and she wasn't able to recover as much as she had from the one before.  She was still able to hold her newspapers and look at them - she said she couldn't actually read them, but enjoyed looking at the papers anyway - and feed herself, but it was harder for her to talk than before.  It had already been difficult to begin with, so she was that much more frustrated by this. I think that's been her biggest obstacle, the one that bothers her most, because she's always loved being with her family and conversing with us.  After her stroke, she very obviously knew what she wanted to say, but most of the time, different words would end up coming out.  She knew it was wrong and kept trying to say it again, but each time, it would happen the same way.  She would get really depressed over it and become angry or unresponsive to any other attempts at conversation.

Then, earlier this year, she had a fall when trying to pick up a picture that had fallen on the floor, and her doctor believed she may have had a third stroke when the fall occurred.  Afterward, she suddenly lost even more motor function than before.  Her right leg could no longer hold her weight, so she couldn't walk anymore.  She also couldn't use her right arm as much as before.  Rehab didn't seem to help as much anymore.

A couple of weeks ago, she was sent to UHC because of swelling in her face and right leg.  It turned out that she had a blood clot in her leg and a touch of pneumonia.  She didn't want to eat or drink anything, hadn't, in fact, for the past week or so.  She was only eating a little bit of food each day but eventually began drinking Ensure drinks and sometimes the little milkshakes that they would bring her with her dinner.  She was still very weak though, and sometimes didn't seem aware we were even there.  I fed her lunch this past Saturday, and it seemed like she was falling asleep between bites sometimes.  

Overall, this past weekend, she seemed to be improving...a little.  The doctors told us that she may never recover the mental state that she had before she got sick.  It just depended on how she progressed after this.  They also said that with as much as she's been through and as weak as she is, it may only be a matter of time before she passes.  They did everything they could for her at the hospital and discharged her a week and a half after she arrived.  She got to go back to Rosewood Wednesday morning and was obviously exhausted by all the traveling and moving.  


Yesterday I found out that her doctor called my grandpa to tell him that her organs are beginning to shut down.  

After all she's been through, it seems like this may finally be it.  


I don't know what to think right now...I guess I just want her to be happy and at peace.  And as long as she's here, she won't be, with the state she's in.  It's been a tough three years on her.  Grandpa and my uncle go every evening to see her, and while I know she loves them and appreciates it, that can only do so much.  She can't talk, it's hard for her to move, she can't do the things she loves anymore...she lays there in her bed or sits in a wheelchair, all day, in a place that isn't her home.  It's become as close as it can get in the past few years I suppose, but we all know she'd prefer her own house.  It's just not possible for her to live there now.


So maybe, it's her time to go.  She has had a really good long life with people she loves and who love her.  She deserves not to suffer anymore.

"Memories"

Those we love remain with us...

In the whisper of the wind

In a soft rain that falls from Heaven

In each sunrise

In every single star that lights the night sky and

In every single memory that we hold within our hearts.

- Mary Chandler Huff