Visit with my Great Grandmother

Today I was supposed to visit my 89 year old great grandmother. She has severe dementia and lives in a nursing home and that is where I was planning on doing the visit. Instead, we got a call this morning saying that she was rushed to the emergency room. She had fallen out of her bed and hit her head on her night stand. The state figured it was a good idea to remove the rails on elderly persons beds in nursing homes. Since hers have been gone she has fallen out three times. This is a previous wound that had been split open again due to the fall. For some reason or another, ever since she could not live on her own anymore, she seems to blame it on my mother, which is really emotionally draining for my mom. The first thing she said to my mother when she saw her today was "I want to die" followed by "I hope you are happy." When my brother and I arrived, her mood improved slightly and then she fell asleep. The doctor came in and woke her to clean her wound and stitch her up. When he went to give her a shot of morphine in her face, she screamed in pain. Two male nurses came to help hold her down while the doctor attempted to give her stitches. She continued to scream and yell "Don't you dare! Don't you dare! Who do you think you are!" I could no longer be in the room and watched from outside. Seeing her in pain is one of the most horrible things for me. She started saying "Don't do this in front of Dustin, not in front of Dustin." I don't think she understood what was going on, which made the situation more uncomfortable. As I watched from outside, I saw the doctor mumble a comment to the nurses while my great grandmother was screaming, and they all broke out into laughter. This made me unbelievably angry, but my anger soon faded as I burst into tears. It takes a small man to poke fun at an 89 year old mentally unstable woman while what little family she has is standing outside the door. After he was done, they left and I re-entered the room. My mother asked how she was doing and she didn't really respond or look at her. When I came over and put my hand on her shoulder and told her her head looked better, she smiled a little and said my name. One of the nurses came back in and started to bandage her up. It was the same one who had just laughed at her moments before. He had not said one word, or even introduced himself for that matter. I glared at him while he bandaged her up. He looked over at me and pointed at the woman in the bed and said, "This your grandmother?" Not "is she", but, "this." I said, "Great Grandmother," softly. He repeated my answer and left the room. After that we said our goodbyes and an ambulance took her back to her nursing home. My great grandmother can mostly be very difficult at times. She is stubborn and ornery and does not have much will to be alive. There have been plenty of times where she shouldn't be, to the amazement of her and my family, she still is. But when I see her in so much pain and suffering and confusion, I realize how much she really does mean to me. And as bad as it sounds that sometimes it feels like a chore to visit her, I'm glad to have her. She helped raise me, and the moment in the ER today when I knew she was scared and confused, but identified I was there, I felt she was happy inside and that she loves me. The sad part is tomorrow she might not even remember I was there.

dustin