sunday, monday: crappy days. tuesday, wednesday: crappy days…

summary: grandmother, three years gone; grandfather, 84, not doing so hot in hospital…

sunday morning my grandfather calls me at 2:00 in the morning. i thought it was my drug-addled irresponsible potential trainwreck friend J, so i answered the phone most impolitely. once i realized it was him, it was too late, and i had to call him back. he didn’t sound very good. i’d just spoken to him that afternoon, and he said he was exhausted, and sounded very so. the line was busy, so i hung up quickly and the phone rang again. he’d been vomiting and had been having diarrhea. i phoned my dad and rushed over.

he wasn’t looking so hot, so eventually we all agreed to call the ambulance and have him shuttled over to Green Memorial Hospital.

he wasn’t doing much worse, or much better sunday. i called off work. it was my very first day out of training.

monday, i went to work.

three years ago monday was the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. it was a miserable, miserable day.

i don’t remember anything at all about tuesday, except that i’m pretty sure i was at work, and that i hadn’t gotten up in time to go give grandpa a visit that day.

sometime tuesday night, the shit hit the fan, so to speak. even my normally-stoic, “everting gwan be all rite” father said he’d been upset. he and the hospital both said they called me. i checked my voice mail: Tony’s daughter Abbie, my girlfriend Lisa, my buddy Travis (saved prior); checked my answering machine: Kirsten Dunst, Bill Clinton, my buddy Travis (saved prior)… nothing new. normally, i get my messages without fail. apparently this must have been the result of a ripple in the space-time continuum. sorry for any upsetting messages you might have received, Sal Rosenberg of Scranton, PA!

anyway… my grandfather’s white cell count was sky high (nurse this afternoon: “highest I’ve seen in anyone, ever”) (he’s had leukemia for 30+ years now, believe it or not, the ox), and he’d had a bad reaction to the Fenergan they gave him for his nausea. he ripped the IV out (now has swollen left arm), and i hear the old room was left a pitiful wreck. his kidney’s not doing so great. 102° fever. very low blood pressure. and a fibrillating heart, pounding fast to beat hell, and with a terrible clashing rhythm like Keith Richards on a nine-day smack bender. they moved him to Telemetry, where they could keep a better eye on his vitals (and whereabouts, as it were).

i called off work again (one half of my PTO balance now gone) and saw him today; it was so sad. he was fairly alert, but incoherent. he couldn’t communicate, because he was on oxygen and all dried out with no more voice. he looked desperate and uncomfortable and anxious. he was disoriented badly. i could go on and on. some of it was cute, in a sad, hallucinogenic sort of way. mostly it was just sad.

at one point, some asshole oxygen merchant came in while i was alone with him and our friend’s friend Katherine, and asked me if he was a FULL CODE. i looked at him like, “huh?” and he explained in the bluntest fucking possible terms (speaking about a foot away from poor old Grandfather) that i should have known whether or not we wanted him to be resuscitated should he start to stop. i said, “er… is that a very likely possibility at this point?” and he just said that i should know and that sure, anything can happen. i wanted to rip out his goddamn lungs and spit on his face. tactless fuck. the law here requires them to do that, unless told otherwise. had anyone said anything OTHER-wise? no. in fact, we’re all for defaulting to trying to keep him going until it becomes reasonably unreasonable. common sense, man! again, what a moronic and tactless fucking worthless waste of cells.

i watched my girlfriend holding his hand with tears welling up in her eyes. it was a bittersweet day in many ways.

i just called the hospital a little while ago. i felt so guilty for not having stayed the night, and so scared that he was going to rip out his catheter and IVs (he’s got about 50 of ’em, it looks like), and fall and smash himself open. seeing that as a likely scenario, the nurse had put him on Atavan. Atavan, my arch nemesis. Atavan, which had reduced my grandmother’s already cancer-boiled brain to mush. Atavan, relentless slayer of logic and awareness.

thursday, friday dot dot dot

we Jarratts are all very optimistic that he’ll be out working on the fence or doing some other damn thing this weekend.

also: just found out i am overdrawn on my debit card. fuckity fuck. that’s at least three overdraft fees, i think.