In loving memory of Loha Gene Mussell

A Dedication to my Grandma
By Amanda Kay Mussell



Though we’re here to say goodbye
In our hearts you’ll always lie
And while we find it hard to let you go
In a better place you are, we know

You saw the beauty in every day life
It helped you through times of sorrow and strife
In your life, you fought the good fight
You fought that fight with all your might

You always took care of everyone else
As easily as taking a pulse
You never let go of being a nurse
Taking care of friends and family, for better or worse

Then it became time for us to take care of you
We did the best that we could do
Then God called you home to His eternal bliss
We said goodbye with a hug and a kiss

Finally reunited with your true love
We know that you watch down on us from above
We know you’ll be watching us every day
For you’ve joined the angels so faraway

Though you’re not near, you’re still around
With us in thoughts and sound
Whether through song or the sight of a flower
We know you’re near, in the peace of a rain shower

When times get bad and we’re filled with fear
We know you’ll make it better with an angel’s whisper in our ear
Helping us through the good times and the bad
Knowing you don’t want us to be sad

You’ve become our angel to adore
Waiting for us on God’s golden shore
Grandpa met you at heaven’s door
And told you “My dear, your suffering is no more.”

So, while we miss you so
We knew it was your time to go
As you sit in heaven’s splendor
You’re still our great defender

With a tear we say good-bye
We look for you now in the sky
And while our lives won’t be the same
We will forever carry your flame

Watch down on us Grandma
From heaven above
We will miss you forever
As we say good-bye with our undying love

Ups and downs

God what an emotional roller coaster this weekend has been.

Friday after staying awake longer than I would have liked to to see our carpet installed, I managed to collapse and get almost 6 hours of sleep. Then we all went up to see grandma in the hospital where we were assaulted by bad news.

Her fever was back. She was delirious, thinking that she was at home and needed to go to the hospital. It was scary. Not only that, but they'd moved her from the far end of the hall, to the room across the hall from the nurse's station and had a bed monitor on because she had this habit of getting out of bed with no one there to help her, and she was pretty darn weak, plus had a tangle of IV's to deal with. It was a scary sight. When we left, they were prepping her for another CT scan.

And the results weren't good. Her abscess was back, and bigger than before. And the nursing staff was having issues maintaining an IV site, so her alarm was going off all day on the IV pumps and her IV was leaking, so they decided that she needed a PICC line as well, so that they could stop blowing her veins with 2 different IVs.

So yesterday my dad and aunts spent all day waiting to see her doctor, who forgot about her after getting tied up in the emergency room and didn't remember until he was on his way home about her. So he called up at night.

At least yesterday she looked better. She was remembering a bit more and remembering some of what was going on. It seemed like our scare of possibly losing her was over. My mom and I had talked that morning and cried. It's so hard to face our mortality, but I realize that if the time comes, Grandma s ready. She's at peace and she misses Grandpa so much. It'll be hard when the time comes, but I don't think that it's going to be now.

It'll come soon enough if she doesn't start eating soon. We found out over the phone from Dr Ali last night that she's only eating half as much as she needs to survive. We asked the nurses if we could bring her up food since they were doing a calorie count, and they said yes, as long as we told them what we fed her.

So a plan strung into action. We were going to take her the chocolate ice cream that she loved so much from Mussell Beach, and we'd get her a large and tell her that it was a small. She also said to bring her chocolates if we wanted her to eat. So we went this morning after church and got her a bunch of candy: chocolate covered cashew clusters, chocolate covered caramels, and peanut butter kisses. Then we went over to Mandarin House and got 4 orders of takeout Chinese, Sweet and sour shrimp for her, and mom, dad and I got our favorites and took it all up to the hospital, hoping to entice grandma to eat. Unfortunately we got there after her lunch tray was delivered, but it had a piece of rubbery chicken on it, so she swapped out a crab rangoon for the chicken and munched on some of the shrimp. Aunt DeeDee took the leftovers home and heated them up for grandma to eat again later. She nibbled at the shrimp and the rice and ate the other rangoon for dinner and then ate her mashed potatoes and green beans off of her tray, so it was ok, if still not enough.

Until we convinced her to eat a "small" ice cream cone tonight. When we got up there tonight, her PICC line was in, and the plan for her is to get drained again tomorrow and have another drain put into the abscess while she completes 2 week of antibiotics and rehab over at Bay Special Care hospital at Bay Med's West Campus.

She's not out of the woods yet, but things are looking up.

Worry

A week later and my Grandma is still in the hospital. She was admitted through the Emergency Room last Tuesday because of a fever and abdominal pain. Turns out that she has diverticulitis that got all inflamed and the inflamed part exploded and formed an abscess. The abscess that she had (4cmx4cm) still has a drain in it, though it's a smaller than the previous drain. So from Tuesday until Saturday she was NPO, then graduated to ice chips and a banana bag. Saturday she graduated to soft foods and on Sunday we snuck her up some ice cream. That's when we found out that before they're letting her go home, they're going to do a calorie count to see if she's taking in enough nutrition before they take her off of the banana bag. We went up last night and there's a sheet on her door marking what was on each tray that she got during the day, and she barely ate anything off of her trays. We tried to get her to eat more, getting some ice cream from the nurse for her, and she pretty much refused to eat it, until my mom started talking to her and then feeding it to her.

And what's even more worrying is her lack of memory. She's so confused about where she even is. She doesn't know if she's at home or in the hospital. Doesn't know what day it is (but I guess after a week in the hospital that would happen). She wanted an extra blanket and told us that there was one in the linen closet. Sorry Grandma, no linen closet in your room. Then she thought that the blanket my mom got from the nurse was a tablecloth. Mom got her all tucked in and got her to eat some ice cream then Grandma tells us to put it in the freezer. We had to explain to her multiple times that there was no freezer or fridge for us to put them in so she needed to eat it now. A few minutes later she's asking the same questions. The entire time we're trying to tell her that she needs to actually eat if she wants to get out of the hospital.

It's worrying.

If she doesn't start eating more, she's not going to be around much longer.