She's Sick... Again :-(

I knew I had forgotten to include some important things in my previous "tidbits" post, but they might as well be in a separate one, given their sad overtones.

My only surviving grandmother is sick again, and this happened around the same time that she was seriously sick late last year into January this year. This time she has not been hospitalized, though, which is a blessing for the family because she doesn't have insurance and going into a public hospital would just kill her right away, so her children share the costs of hospitalization at an expensive private hospital.

She had a gastrointestinal problem last week, maybe the stomach flu or food poisoning, and things went downhill from there. She is very week from not eating much and confused from the medication. She's suffering from fluid retention and she is doing physical therapy every day so that fluid doesn't accumulate in her lungs like it did almost a year ago. My aunt also paid for years an at home nursing service and they come if needed too. My aunts are doing everything they can so that Grandma may not feel pain and discomfort. She really doesn't want to go to the hospital, so it would be a blessing if she could die peacefully at home if at all possible.

It seems that death doesn't come that easy for people who have lived that long, though. My poor aunt who is single and who has lived with my grandma since grandpa died back in 1978 is stretched thin, she's reaching her limit. Her greatest despair comes when Grandma feels frustrated and says she wants the doctor to give her something so she can just die. That must be just devastating to hear (and to say too).

So, if you pray, keep my aunt and my grandma in your prayers.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On the other hand, death sometimes comes too quickly as it just happened two days ago with Cleide, an accomplished dressmaker who made many clothes for me, my mom and countless people we know in Brazil. She had a headache, went to bed and didn't wake up -- went straight into a coma. She came to in the hospital, when they diagnosed a huge brain tumor. This happened last week on Tuesday. She was going to have surgery this past Tuesday, but died on Monday night.

Yeah. Just like that. So incredibly shocking. K and I were stunned, particularly because last June, on a day when we went to the notary public to get K to sign a permission so I could return to the U.S. with the kids without him (Brazil requires a notarized permission form), we went to Cleide's house so we could go online and print out a form (she was one of the few people we knew in the town and who we knew would be at home). Having seen her so recently makes her death even more surreal. Well, one could argue that at least it was quick, that she didn't suffer... but this must be hard on the family who couldn't prepare for such a sudden development.

Well, it's hard anyway -- it's been incredibly hard on my aunt to see my grandma waste away so slowly, over a period of so many years. One thing is certain, no matter how/when it happens, death is never something that we naturally accept and feel OK about. [Sigh]