Grandpa

I am not very good at writing stories like this but I will at least try to record this for my memory if for no other reason.
Wednesday, Grandma awakened my parents about 7:00 to tell them that Grandpa had just fallen. They came down and got him in his chair. He was really confused so they just figured he had an infection again. Those are always the first signs of a UTI (urinary tract infection) for him. He almost always falls and then is totally confused about every thing. Most of the time though he bounces right back with in about a day. We start making him drink more water and usually he gets an antibiotic and he is fine.
He really wasn't getting over this one very quickly. Grandpa's usual nurse was on medical leave so he had an other nurse come out to see him Wednesday. She wasn't used to what was normal with him and what was not. She went ahead and called his doctor and he called in a prescription for an antibiotic.
Friday my parents were supposed to leave for an over night trip to Ohio. Dad was debating going or not because Grandpa was still sick. He decided that everything would be fine and they would go ahead and go.
Saturday morning we could tell he was a little worse but I still wasn't terribly concerned (I think I must be slow or something). By noon however, things were headed down hill in a hurry. He was having a hard time breathing, his coloring looked terrible, and he almost completely unresponsive when we would try to talk to him. We called the on-call nurse, but she didn't answer. We called our neighbor who is a nurse just so she could give us an opinion on what we should do.
When she came over the first thing she said was "Wow, his coloring doesn't look good!" She said that his pulse rate was bouncing all over the place and his oxygen was very low. We called Dad, who by this time was on his way home, to ask him what he thought we should do. He and Jennifer (the nurse) both came to the conclusion that we needed to call an ambulance.
When he got to the hospital the problems were a lot more serious than we had thought. They decided that they needed to put him in the ICU. We were kind of surprised at that.
I called my aunt, who lives about three hours away, as soon as he left in the ambulance. She decided to come up right away with her son, daughter-in-law and grandsons. An other cousin was also coming up to see him. By this time we were all realizing that Grandpa was probably finally going to get to go Home which is what he has been praying for for 3 years.
My parents got to the hospital about 5:00. They had to come home a little before 7 so Dad could teach a class.
Dad went back in to the hospital at 10:00 so I went with him. On the way to the hospital we stopped by to see our friend who has been Grandpa's nurse for the last two years. Dad told her that he really didn't think Grandpa was going to make it through this. She said she really didn't think so either. They both said that the reason they decided to go ahead and take him to the hospital is that they didn't want him dying with just my sisters and me there. That would have been really hard.
When I walked into the hospital I couldn't believe how many things they had him hooked up to! He had an oxygen mask on that covered most of his face. He woke up after I had been there for a few minutes and I waved at him and he waved back. I was glad to see that much response.
Aunt Cathy, Kaleb, and Grandma all decided to stay the night at the hospital. Dad, Beckisue and I went home some time after 11. We didn't really know what to expect over night.
This morning my mom came in right after I had awakened and told me that Aunt Cathy had called and said that Grandpa was sitting up eating breakfast, and had wanted to know if there had been an accident or why was he in the hospital! No body could believe it! We stopped by for just a minute on our way to church and I couldn't believe how different he looked. They had him off the oxygen mask, and his eyes looked normal. He greeted us when we walked in with his usual greeting. I was totally shocked! The nurses told us that he was going to be discharged that afternoon! Now, how often does someone go from the ICU to home???
He is home now. He is not totally back to normal, and the nurse said he wasn't completely out of the woods. Of course, you never know about tomorrow at any age but you especially don't know what is going to happen when a person is 97!
He is still pretty confused about things. I asked him if he was glad to be home from the hospital and he said "Was I in the hospital? I don't remember it."
We are glad that he is home. I am so thankful for Grandpa and the heritage that I have been blessed with!