Goodbye, Grandpa

You may have noticed that my blog has been ignored more as of late. About two weeks ago I got a surprise visit from my sister. I had been outside working and it turned out Dad (and several) others had been trying to get a hold of me. I don't generally carry my phone with me when I am outside working, and it was dead on top of that, so no one was getting through. He called Num, she came out to let me know. What was up? Grandpa H had been taken to the hospital. He was having some trouble breathing, and was running a fever. Nothing we hadn't been through before, and no one I talked to made it sound too serious. They just wanted to see what was up. So I loaded up the kids and headed into town. I got my phone back on to see there was a call from the nursing home just letting me know he was headed into Mercy. There was another call from the hospital asking if family was coming in-kind of odd since they had never called before. I called them back to let them know I was coming and see if Grandpa H was doing okay. The man I spoke with said just to head on up. So I got to the hospital and walked into emergency. I stated I was there to see Grandpa H, and immediately a man in a suit, obviously waiting by the door for someone, jumped up and said he would escort us back. Okay. That's odd, too. So I followed him, still thinking he was just a nice employee. Instead of heading to Grandpa H's room, though, we were taken to the "quiet room", which from prior experiences, I knew was not good news. Even worse, they brought in the child life specialists to play with the kids while they talked to me. I was expecting to hear he wasn't doing well. Instead they uttered words that keep replaying in my mind as ones I was not in any way prepared to hear..."we did everything we could." Um, what? The poor doctor looked pretty shaken as it was, and I was stunned and needed to be explained to situation several times. Basically, Grandpa H was gone before he ever left the nursing home (though they DID NOT make it sound like that at all at the nursing home, which kind of peeved me). He was having trouble breathing, they put him on O2 and called am ambulance. By the time the ambulance was there his heart had stopped. They resuscitated him as best they could, giving compressions and intubating him on the way to the hospital. When he got there he was gone, but they reintubated him just to give it one final go, but he was not there. Though I have not heard any final statement, my guess is it was a heart attack/cardiac arrest. And his body was in no condition to fight off anything. I am happy for him, as his life quality was awful. We are sad, yet relieved to know he is in such a better place than where he has been. And that it went quickly. His funeral arrangements were tense as I had to deal with his other son, but things went off pretty well. I am dreading the reading of the will, as it won't go as the other brother wants it to, but in the end I can finally be completely done with that man, and Grandpa H is no longer suffering. Pony Gal has taken it well, especially when we explained it that he was with Grandpa J and Jesus. That made it okay. She knew he was very sick and not very happy. We will miss him, and have been rather nostalgic the last couple weeks, but such a heavy burden has been lifted, and I know he is happier.