As many of you know, Thom's Grandfather passed away on December 2nd. Unfortunately, my Grandfather passed away yesterday morning at about 2:00 am. We are all very saddened by this news, but not surprised. His last couple weeks go like this:
When Thom, Dean, Troy and I got home from Indiana on Sunday, December 7th, we called my parents to let them know that we were home and they could be done babysitting our dog. When I got a hold of my mom on her cell phone she told me that her and her sister (my grandparents only children) had taken my Grandpa to the hospital because he had been hallucinating. Apparently, the week before that his leg had begin to hurt and they had taken him to see his doctor. The nice doctor prescribed some medicine but my grandpa was not eating or drinking, just taking the pills. Apparently, the hallucinations started because of dehydration.
While in the hospital, they found that my grandpa was filled with stage 4 cancer (the worst stage) in his lungs, liver and bones. We were all VERY surprised by this information because this was the FIRST time any of us had heard this. My grandpa had to stay in the hospital a few days and once his fluids were back up to a respectable level, he was released home with hospice.
When he got home, hospice brought a hospital bed and all the necessary items. My grandma, mom and aunt all hired an additional nurse organization to come and assist my grandma with grandpa whenever he needed to get out of the bed to use the bathroom or anything else. These couple days were hard on everybody because the nurse couldn't be there all the time so my mom and aunt were taking turns staying with them. My mom even spent the night in her old bedroom for the first time since she moved out to go to college.
Within a few short days time my grandpa had deteriorated so rapidly that he could no longer get out of bed, eat and was awake only for short periods of time. Unfortunately my grandma became a total wreck. The family decided to move him to Kent Community Extended Care facility. Grandpa was moved to the hospital on Monday during the day. Both my mom and aunt stopped going into work so they could sit by his bedside at all times. My grandma was brought to the hospital periodically, but it was hard on her since she can't drive in the snow. Tuesday afternoon, grandpa decided to say "goodnight" to everyone and went to sleep. This was the last time he was awake.
Tuesday night at 11:00 pm my mom and aunt both got calls from the hospital saying that my grandpa started having sleep apnea and wasn't breathing normally. They decided to get ready and go in about 1:30. Eventually his breathing evened out, but my mom and aunt were at his bedside for 16 hours that day with no sleep. From that point on, my mom, dad and aunt took shifts as bedside. The hospice nurse could tell that his breathing was becoming more and more labored.
Yesterday morning we received a phone call from my dad that my grandpa had passed away at 2:00 am Saturday morning.
We are all very surprised that he hung on as long as we did. We appreciated the care and dedication of the hospital and all the great nurses (including hospice).
My grandma is doing okay at this point. She has been amazingly strong but has had her moments. The visitation will be tomorrow night (Monday, December 22) and funeral at my parent's church on Tuesday, December 23.
