Flasch186
04-19-2006, 11:05 PM
So tomorrow I get to pick up my grandfather from the home and take him to the MAyo clinic for a myriad of tests but this is just the climax. Last December I got a call from his first alert that he had called 911. I rushed over to house to find that no one was there and all the lights were off. I then called 9/11 and they couldnt tell me jack crap but asked if Id like to have them send an ambulance. I told them that I thought that they already had but no one was there and I couldnt get int he house. So they send an ambulance. When the fire truck gets there the kid jumps off with this befuddled look and says to me, "Man...we were just here." So they explained that they picked the old man up off of the street and took him to the nearest hospital from his fall.
So the family met at St. luke's hospiital where he was in good spirts but gave us the whole hip hurts scare. So after a bunch of tests they figured out that he fractured his hip a little bit but that after about a month at the rehab facility he'll be better. so the next day they took him over to the rehab center which was.....AWFUL.
This rehab center had an unbelieveable spanning of people in different bad shape but I meta ton of characters. My grandpa was put in a room with another old old man attached to an air machine that made a racket at all times. I spent the next month trying to perfect the folded blankets under his machine to keep the noise down.
At first my grandfather's neighbor was a bit standoffish, well i guess I was cuz he was bed-ridden for the most part so eventually I broke down the walls and began speaking to him. come to find out his name was Dietrich Klein a fighter pilot for the third Reich!! My grandpa a Jewish American Soldier in WW2 in the same room with him. I swear it was unreal but in talking to him over the next month we became someone of friends.
One day I asked Dietrich what he does all day, and he meekly says, "stare at the back of my eyelids." I said well that wasnt going to work at all,, and he laughed. I asked him his favorite type of music and he said classical. The next day I bought him and grandpa CD players and a horde of batteries, and CD's. You shouldve seen him light up...I think he may have cried, grandpa...not so much, but Dietrich was over the moon. I taught the mostly blind man the buttons on the front since I bought the ones that looked the easiest with the biggest buttons and apparently it worked.
I would see dietrich tapping his toes (dancing), asleep in his wheelchair with the headphones on, etc. I guess his children who visit caught on and the next thing he knew he had a regular collection. One time he told me to take the head phones and listen to his favorite, an American old band that I cant remember the name of but he had his son burn me a copy, which he thought was neat.
Eventually granpa got moved to an assisted living facility but he has been headed downhill fast. He has bouts of dementia (we think unless the stories he tells about him needeing to press the button on his oxygen machine at exactly 900pm to turn control over the electricity to the main desk for the entire unit is true), a nasty rash that no one knew about, and he has been losing weight and how.
Come to find out that he simply is not getting enough calories, and I hate myself for it. I cant believe im tearing up but Im afraid that had he been getting enough calories he may have had a lot longer, I dunno. He might be able to come back, but I dont know and I dont know what to do cuz I do everything for everyone in my family and I just couldnt keep an eye out on him. I couldnt, thats not true....I didnt make enough time. I guess its part of the human condition, but I "felt" too busy but in retrospect right now, im realizing in typing this that I didnt make enough time. There are 24 hours in a day.
Wow, I didnt know that I felt this way until I got here in the letter, but who else am I supposed to tell this to. Im certainly not going to go crying like this to, really, anyone I know around here. Right now GF is in bed watching something on Tivo and I came in here to check the lotto numbers but I just started typing about tommorrow. Im dreading it.
The doctor used some term I dont rememeber that my mom told me described grandpa, and it is a word that they use to describe someone who looks like they came out of a concentration camp.....how could we allow that to happen!!!
wow...I cant believe how im crying. This is the first time in a long time. Im a pretty sensitive guy but most things dont bother me, but typing on here is like getting it out or something. This is not attention seeking and i dont care if you read this at all. honestly I dont know why I started typing it but now that Im into it, what else is there to do. I cant delete it, what do I title it? Ive been so ultrasensitized lately by some that Im not trying to be whoring for attention, but I guess this ended up being the definition of self-serving since I got something out of it, and maybe no one else did. I dunno.
he';s going to miss my wedding i think. here i go. I didnt cry at my other granparents funerals, but im crying now and he hasnt even passed away. He loves the Tigers and every year including this one he talks about how bad theyre going to be but deep down I know he holds out hope. I should go back to bed.
here he was on better days:
http://www.usfl-fof.com/house/grandpa.JPG
So the family met at St. luke's hospiital where he was in good spirts but gave us the whole hip hurts scare. So after a bunch of tests they figured out that he fractured his hip a little bit but that after about a month at the rehab facility he'll be better. so the next day they took him over to the rehab center which was.....AWFUL.
This rehab center had an unbelieveable spanning of people in different bad shape but I meta ton of characters. My grandpa was put in a room with another old old man attached to an air machine that made a racket at all times. I spent the next month trying to perfect the folded blankets under his machine to keep the noise down.
At first my grandfather's neighbor was a bit standoffish, well i guess I was cuz he was bed-ridden for the most part so eventually I broke down the walls and began speaking to him. come to find out his name was Dietrich Klein a fighter pilot for the third Reich!! My grandpa a Jewish American Soldier in WW2 in the same room with him. I swear it was unreal but in talking to him over the next month we became someone of friends.
One day I asked Dietrich what he does all day, and he meekly says, "stare at the back of my eyelids." I said well that wasnt going to work at all,, and he laughed. I asked him his favorite type of music and he said classical. The next day I bought him and grandpa CD players and a horde of batteries, and CD's. You shouldve seen him light up...I think he may have cried, grandpa...not so much, but Dietrich was over the moon. I taught the mostly blind man the buttons on the front since I bought the ones that looked the easiest with the biggest buttons and apparently it worked.
I would see dietrich tapping his toes (dancing), asleep in his wheelchair with the headphones on, etc. I guess his children who visit caught on and the next thing he knew he had a regular collection. One time he told me to take the head phones and listen to his favorite, an American old band that I cant remember the name of but he had his son burn me a copy, which he thought was neat.
Eventually granpa got moved to an assisted living facility but he has been headed downhill fast. He has bouts of dementia (we think unless the stories he tells about him needeing to press the button on his oxygen machine at exactly 900pm to turn control over the electricity to the main desk for the entire unit is true), a nasty rash that no one knew about, and he has been losing weight and how.
Come to find out that he simply is not getting enough calories, and I hate myself for it. I cant believe im tearing up but Im afraid that had he been getting enough calories he may have had a lot longer, I dunno. He might be able to come back, but I dont know and I dont know what to do cuz I do everything for everyone in my family and I just couldnt keep an eye out on him. I couldnt, thats not true....I didnt make enough time. I guess its part of the human condition, but I "felt" too busy but in retrospect right now, im realizing in typing this that I didnt make enough time. There are 24 hours in a day.
Wow, I didnt know that I felt this way until I got here in the letter, but who else am I supposed to tell this to. Im certainly not going to go crying like this to, really, anyone I know around here. Right now GF is in bed watching something on Tivo and I came in here to check the lotto numbers but I just started typing about tommorrow. Im dreading it.
The doctor used some term I dont rememeber that my mom told me described grandpa, and it is a word that they use to describe someone who looks like they came out of a concentration camp.....how could we allow that to happen!!!
wow...I cant believe how im crying. This is the first time in a long time. Im a pretty sensitive guy but most things dont bother me, but typing on here is like getting it out or something. This is not attention seeking and i dont care if you read this at all. honestly I dont know why I started typing it but now that Im into it, what else is there to do. I cant delete it, what do I title it? Ive been so ultrasensitized lately by some that Im not trying to be whoring for attention, but I guess this ended up being the definition of self-serving since I got something out of it, and maybe no one else did. I dunno.
he';s going to miss my wedding i think. here i go. I didnt cry at my other granparents funerals, but im crying now and he hasnt even passed away. He loves the Tigers and every year including this one he talks about how bad theyre going to be but deep down I know he holds out hope. I should go back to bed.
here he was on better days:
http://www.usfl-fof.com/house/grandpa.JPG