I am having problems coping right now. I don’t know how to handle all of this. My body temperature keeps fluctuating between freezing and boiling and I’m constantly sweating and shaking and I feel at any moment like I could burst into tears. Which has happened a few times already tonight.
They released Nina (my grandmother) from the hospital 3 days ago. I finally got some straight answers about her condition but it’s been so hard to come to grips with that I just couldn’t bring myself to write about it here.
But I need someplace to put this all, so I’m writing about it now because I don’t know what else to do. She was admitted with water in her lungs and swollen legs due to water retention, which they treated successfully with medication. But upon further examination they discovered two things: one, that the joint in her hip has eroded to the point of nonexistence (they couldn’t even replace it if they wanted to because there’s literally nothing to replace, the doctor was impressed that she was walking on her own at all), and that there is a slow-growing mass in her liver that is likely cancer but that they don’t know for sure and never will because they decided it was pointless to test it since she wouldn’t survive chemo anyways.
She’s 99 years old and I knew her sight and hearing were getting bad, but my sister went to visit her the other day and Nina couldn’t even recognize her. She waited an hour to see her and then spent two minutes with her before Nina sent her away so that she could sleep.
She doesn’t want anyone to visit. I called her today and she told the nurse she didn’t want to talk to me. She hasn’t taken a call from my father (who speaks to her every day) for two days now.
Her quality of life is terrible, and I’ve known that she wants to die for years now, but this is it. It’s happening. She’s dying. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. And I can’t even visit because she wouldn’t see me. I know it’s so selfish that I want her to live, I know that. I don’t want her to be in pain, I don’t want her to suffer. But I just can’t imagine a world without her in it.
And I’m stuck here all alone. I have no friends or family here and I’m broke as shit after the mess that was the month of February. I can’t afford to go home. Plus everyone is sick there (my mother and sister both have terrible colds) and even if I had the money to get there, the clubs there are shit and I would never make enough to pay my bills while I’m there. This is the fucking worst.
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