I don't know how to say this

My grandma passed away last Sunday night. As hard as it is to write about this, I want to get the details down on "paper" so that I never forget it.

All last week she kept getting progressively weaker. Tuesday we called family and they started making arrangements to come out. Thursday morning our pastor, who has known my grandparents for 40+ years, came out to see my grandma. She asked him if we had a memorial service would he do it. And yes, she said if. Crazy lady. After he left, we told her again that her kidneys were probably failing and asked again if she wanted us to take her into the hospital. She said, very firmly, no. She knew what was going on and wanted to be at home with her family.

Thursday afternoon my brother came in from Utah to see her. She was laying in her bed and my mom walked into the room ahead of my brother and said someone was here to see her. She saw that it was my brother and said "Oh, Jay!" with a big smile on her face. She was excited to see him. That afternoon my great aunt and cousin (my grandma's sister and her son) came in from Arizona to see her. I know my grandma was glad to see her sister one more time.

Thursday night she was really weak, and kept asking when my uncle (her youngest son) was coming in. We kept telling her that he was flying in early Friday morning and would be here when she woke up. Friday morning my job was to go pick up my uncle and cousin at the airport, when my mom texted me to hurry, that the timing would be close. Little did we know how wrong we were.

Friday she was still awake enough to talk, not to hold a real conversation, but to say a few words here and there. Everyone was there. All of her kids, and all but one of the grandkids (he lives in Virginia and just couldn't get out here). We all took turns sitting by her bedside and talking with her. Friday afternoon hospice came out and we got her started on that. They were wonderful, and I definitely wouldn't want to do this without them. They left medicine for pain and shortness of breath. Mostly just to relax her.

Saturday morning was just bad. She was struggling to breathe and asking how much longer. We just kept medicating her. My grandpa sat by her bedside for hours, talking to her, holding her hand, stroking her forehead. It was absolutely heartbreaking to hear him encouraging her to take that last step. We all told her that we loved her, but we didn't want her to be like this, so we told her to hurry and run to her eternal reward. Her breathing was so labored and shallow that we really thought it could be any moment. But she was a fighter, her heart was beating strong and just wasn't ready to give up yet.

She wasn't really responsive at this time, except when my grandpa was talking to her. She would become so relaxed and her breathing would become easier. We think she knew he was there, and felt safe with him. He said "my baby loves me so much, she just doesn't want to leave me." And we think he was right.

She hung in there all night Saturday night. Sunday morning was the same thing, really shallow, labored breathing. But her heart was still beating strong. Again my grandpa sat by her bedside for hours. He kept asking for one more smile. Around 5pm something changed. Her breathing got even more shallow. We called the hospice nurse out and she said it was imminent. So we all gathered around her bed. My grandpa sat by her head, my mom and uncle were each holding a hand. A couple cousins and I, and my great-aunt were rubbing her legs. And at 9:25pm she finally gave us one last smile, took her final breath, and finally took that step into heaven.

We were all heartbroken, but had our spirits lifted by that last smile. We know that she saw were she was going, and the faces of all the loved ones who went before. That last smile was for us, to let us know that she made it, and to reassure us that we will see her again one day.

My grandma and I after my high school graduation

A Big Scare

I should never say that things aren't too exciting around here anymore. When I do, things just get exciting and not usually in a good way. My grandma gave us quite the scare yesterday. On Friday, my mom talked to the doctor and he said that we are going to need to decide soon how we want to continue my grandma's care. Do we want to continue to be aggressive or do we want to stop everything and consider hospice care. He said that he just doesn't see her pulling out of this. So on Saturday morning my mom went to talk to her and she said that she knew she was reaching the end. When my mom went back in the afternoon, she was so weak she could barely hold her head up. We thought she was gonna fall out of her wheelchair. She said that she wanted to go back to lay down in bed. We were thinking it was just going to be a matter of a few days until she wasn't with us anymore. Luckily it was just a scare, it seems it was the heat that had been getting to her. After laying down in the cooled room, she was much better last night. Not that she's doing all that great, but at least we are not talking in numbers of days now. We still need to decide how we want to continue her care, but at least, it seems, we have some time to decide what to do.

Nothing too exciting....

...going on here this week. It's really hot here. I think it's supposed to be 103* today. That's pretty icky. So haven't been doing too much, just swimming, working, and being lazy when I'm not working. Anyway nothing new to post...the status quo is being maintained. That's the update for now. :)

Sometimes you need a man around

I'm painting again. Don't even get me started, I have no idea why I do this. I decided that I was gonna paint my bedroom, and since I really didn't like the blue in my bathroom I thought well why not paint that too. So I started in the bathroom. I wanted a color like the color of sand to go with the blue that's already in there. One coat in and the color is way more peachy than I like, hopefully it turns more brown as it dries.
What my post is really about though is my bedroom... I was moving some stuff around the bedroom and wishing I had a big strong boy to help me move the furniture, when I saw a lizard! Yes, a LIZARD, in my BEDROOM!. I had no idea how it got there, but there it was. So there we were, staring each other down, both of us too scared to move. So I directed my cat at the lizard and hoped that she'd get it, but I don't think she did. So now I have a lizard in my bedroom, and now I'm too afraid to move the furniture for fear that when I do, this little guy is gonna come running out. The worse fear though is that he won't run out, and he'll come out at night and climb into bed with me. These are the times when I wish I had a boy living here...for moving heavy things, and pest control.


Update as of 730pm....My cat got the lizard!!! Yay, now I don't have to worry about him crawling into bed with me tonight. I have to dispose of the corpse, but I'll take that anyday. I guess all that training in pouncing at my feet really paid off!

Scary...

I do all of my banking online, so I was going online the other day and my credit card account was blocked. It said there was some kind of fraud and I had to go to this website and see what was going on. So turns out someone stole my credit card number. Not the card itself, just the number. The card is still in my wallet. The truly scary thing, I hadn't used this card in probably 6 months. So how did someone get the number? And they used it at McDonald's, so they had to have made a card with the number, because, as far as I know, you can't buy stuff at McDonalds online. It's so scary what people can do these days. Luckily the bank was on top of it and as soon as they saw that charge they put a hold on the account and I'm getting the money refunded to me, but seriously you just never know. Some advice I was told, when shopping with your ATM card, choose the credit option, it still comes out of your checking account, but you sign instead of entering your PIN number. Just one more way to protect your PIN.

Great news!

So we finally got some really good news the other day. My grandma is on this special medication for the anemia. It is a shot that she gets 3 times a week. And it's super expensive. Without insurance the cost is $2400 a month! With insurance her co-pay is $600 a month. No one can pay that, let alone my grandparents who are on social security. Then we found out that there is a gap in insurance. Apparently there is a cap to what medicare will pay, and she has reached that cap. So they were going to have to pay all the cost of the medicine, up until they paid $4300 out of their pockets. They had already paid $1100 in copays so this left $3200 left to be paid this year.
Well we found out that they don't have to pay up to his amount. I'm not really sure exactly how it works, but they only have to pay up to $1600 out of pocket. So that's only $500 more. Then everything will be covered at 95%. That means the medicine will only cost $120 a month! Much more do-able.
We thought this was good enough news, but then we got some more! We had submitted her information to a prescription assistance program that will help with medical costs. And we just found out that she got approved! They will re-imburse her up to $1200 a month for medical costs. So they aren't going to have to pay for any medical costs! Hallelujah! We are so thankful for this blessing! We had been praying for something like this, and the Lord has blessed us. God is so good!

Harvest Crusade 2009

We went to the Harvest Crusade last night at Anaheim Stadium. It was the 20th Southern CA Crusade and so they had a special night planned. We got there early, before the gates opened, and it was already crowded. It ended up being standing room only, 50,000 people got in to the stadium and 5,000 were turned away! And boy did they miss a great show. Chris Tomlin performed, Greg Laurie had a great message, and there were fireworks! Because it was the 20th year, after the alter call (where 4,500 people came forward to change their lives) Chris had a mini concert and there was a 15 minute firework show. Check out the videos I found, the sound quality sucks, but you get the idea. Let me tell you, 50,000 people singing How Great is Our God is an AWESOME thing. It was an amazing night! Go here for the official webcast of the night. (Friday and Saturday nights webcasts are there too.)