caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- sigh. another one about Grandma Oy. My family. So�I haven't had a Grandma & Auntie entry in a while, so I suppose it's about time. It should at least serve the purpose of making all of you out there with troublesome relatives thankful that you aren't a part of myfamily. Apparently this started on Tuesday night and I am only just now hearing about it via email from my mother (I don't know how I managed to stay out of the loop, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth), so my grasp of the situation is minimal. Which is why I will now quote her email in part a) because she will never know I am quoting her and b) so I don't have the headache of trying to explain it all over again. Just reading the email started my eyes twitching. So, begin quote: [Grandma] has been in the hospital since Tues. night. [Auntie] thinks she'll be coming home today ... she is doing well (physically anyway). It started off Tues, [Auntie] was taking her to the doctor for a general checkup (and to discuss the driving issue, unbeknownst to Grandma). As they were getting ready to leave, Grandma fell coming up the step from the family room, evidently put her arms out ... and shattered her left wrist. [Auntie] took her on to Dr's office with her arm in a sling ... the dr did tell her she couldn't drive anymore and that she (dr.) would be sending a letter to the state saying so. [Note: This has been in the works for a while, with Auntie and my dad plotting with the doctor to get Grandma off the road, which is important. But it occurs to me that perhaps they should have checked her wrist first? Maybe they didn't realize how bad it was.]. A nurse then wheeled her over to the ER for her wrist. I guess they finally took her back to be seen around 10 or 11pm and realized how bad her wrist was. They told [my dad] (he went up after work) they didn't think her heart could survive the surgery her wrist really needed so they gave her morphine while they manipulated the bones back into place as best they could and splinted it [snip more detail than I really needed about bone manipulation]. Meanwhile, they have her on a heart monitor and [Dad] noticed her heart rate was dropping really low and mentioned this to doc. They checked ... her HR was ranging from 23-48 beats per min. So they kept her. Dr's think she had had another heart attack at some point earlier Tues. and that she had probably fainted and that was why she fell (tho [Auntie] and Grandma swear she didn't) So they kept her to run more tests. She had a pacemaker put in yesterday and is recovering well. When I saw her last night she said she was just fine and as always was bitterly describing events of 60 yrs. ago, despite the fact that [Buttercup] and [the Diva] were there with [Auntie]. She also insisted that she should now be able to drive.[end quote] The thing that of course really gets me about all this, and which was just confirmed via more conversation with my mom, was that last night (Thursday), Buttercup and Diva's mom Tee(Auntie's daughter, you remember), came up to the hospital, where Auntie has stayed with Grandma nearly this entire time, kindly brings her dinner, and then LEAVES HER KIDS. At the hospital. So they can go home and spend the night with their grandma. Auntie always keeps them on Fridays, you see, as that's her day off. Can Tee not look at her mom and think, hey, mom looks really exhausted, and she's been at the hospital every day this week dealing with Grandma; maybe I should make some alternate arrangements for the kids? Apparently not. Mom went up to the hospital last night after Tee had left, and Auntie's there trying to eat the dinner which Tee oh so kindly brought her in exchange for pawning off the kids. Grandma, as noted above, is back to her usual charming self, Buttercup is bouncing off the walls as she finds this all terribly exciting -- she is six, after all -- and the Diva, of course, is upset because there is no attention being paid to her. So she manages to fall and whack her head on one of the metal bars of the bed, and begins crying and climbing up into Auntie's lap, somehow blaming Buttercup. This child is nine and a half, and she supposedly can't deal with a little bump. So Auntie coddles her, and Grandma begins yelling at Buttercup. Mom notes that the child was nowhere near the Diva, of course, and tells Grandma this who retires, muttering. Mom's new policy, apparently, is given that the woman has never been nice to her (Mom) in 32 years, Mom is giving up trying to be nice to her. To which I say, go Mom. I can't imagine surviving all this time with her as a mother-in-law, particularly as an 18-year-old child bride fresh out of high school. Cripes. So, to sum up, Auntie has apparently been at the hospital all night Tuesday night, most of the day Wednesday and part of Wed. night, worked yesterday and then went to the hospital after work, left the hospital last night with her grandkids in tow, planning on going home to clean up the house so Grandma could get around in case they released her today. I honestly hope they don't; Auntie certainly could use the break, and she won't give it to herself. My dad has been up at the hospital every day before he goes to work, in the mornings, since he's working afternoon shift at present; but so far Auntie has refused all of his offers to help when Grandma gets home. Because that's how she is; if she isn't sacrificing for someone, she's not happy. She would never tell Tee that it's not okay to dump the girls on her, no matter how exhausted she is, and Tee doesn't have the sense to see when her mom needs a break. Auntieis supposed to go up to Stratford with us next weekend, and had been talking about how nice it would be to get away, and we were really looking forward to spending time with her away from her mother and her daughter and the rest of her immediate insane family. But now, who knows? She'll probably guilt herself into staying home, despite the fact that there are plenty of other adults, including Tee, who could watch out for Grandma in the two whole days we'll be gone. I feel almost bad saying "in other news�" but I do have other things, and the above situation is not anything I can help. I'll stop by this weekend and see how Grandma is doing, but other than that there's nothing I can really do; I have to put in some make up hours at work, and even if I offer to stay with Grandma while Auntie takes a nap or goes out or something, she will most likely refuse. Because no one else can do it right. Auntie is a lovely person, but the bizarre symbiotic relationship between her, her mother, and her daughter is something I really just don't understand. I adore my mother, but if she turned into the cranky witch that Grandma is, I would certainly call her on it, and I wouldn't stop my entire life because of it. And you guys thought I was the crazy one in my family. Hah! Yes, I realize that the chances of someone like, oh, say, Swwoop doing that to me are virtually nil � Swwoop would at least would word it a lot more tactfully. But this is an underlying fears in getting back into writing, and underlying fears don't have to be rational, right? It's just that, well, if one is afraid of honest criticism of one's work, than one really doesn't have a great chance of ever actually getting anywhere as a writer. So I'm trying to get used to the idea And the whole point of this story is to learn. It's not a great idea, and it won't be a great story. It's light and fluffy and wouldn't be taken seriously even at its best. That's not the point. Right? If you learn everything in your first leap out of the gate, where do you go from there? Or you get stuck in a rut, doing the same thing over and over because you learn to do one thing well and stick to that thing. That's not what I want to do. Oh, I'm not expressing myself well. It's after lunch time now, and I just returned from GB's potluck farewell lunch, since her actual last day is today. Yeah, she retired like two months ago, but technically she's just been on vacation. And she's been back for a couple of weeks off and on, helping her replacement (who has no pseudonym yet) get settled. In any case, I feel slightly ill from the goodies consumed, and kind of tired, and I don't remember where I was going with the above. I'll let it stand, for now, and look at it later. See if even I can figure out what I was talking about.
1:32 p.m. - August 02, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||