RIP, Gramma

My Gramma passed away this morning.  Thank you to those that read my last post and was thinking of her.

They took out the ventilator tube yesterday as they said they would do around 11:30 am. It was shortly before then that I got a call at work that Gramma would be breathing on her own and the outlook was bleak.  I was out the door of work immediately and arrived at the hospital around 11:45 am.

The neurologist said that she did have a mini stroke which affected her right arm and leg, but she would have recovered from that if given the chance.  The irreversible damage was what was done to her brain.  When my Gramma's heart stopped for five minutes last Friday morning, her blood pressure went down so low and a person who normally doesn't have high blood pressure could recover from that, but my Gramma had higher blood pressure but she was on blood pressure medication to control this. Because of  the severe dip in blood pressure, the brain did not receive the blood it needs.  There are four arteries that run up to your brain and the two that are in the back of her neck were just fine but the two that run on the sides of her neck, including her carotid artery were narrowed allowing less blood to get through and therefore the tiny fibers and everything else her brain started to die, leaving her with little to no brain activity.  While it seemed hopeful to some of us that she was able to respond to some commands such as nodding and shaking her head, she was not able to squeeze your hand.  The neurologist said she would need the most dedicated health care to continue to live and unless she had full-time help in her home, would have to go to a nursing home to live....with no quality of life.

The family didn't debate for very long as to what the plan of action would be.  They could either keep her alive by putting her back on all the machines and everything else to live the rest of her life just like that or they could discontinue any "heroic" care (as the neurologist called it) and let everything run its course.  They decided to let everything run its course with no further extreme medical attention.  This is what my Gramma wanted.

She continued to have a feeding tube and have her lungs suctioned out a couple of times earlier in the day, but as the day progressed, they started to give her morphine for the pain and stopped with the assistance of her lungs.  They then put her on a morphine drip to keep her even more relaxed.  Her eyes would open every once in a while.

I left the hospital around 10:15 pm and most of the family members had left shortly before.  My parents and sister were there until around 1 am.  My aunt and uncle convinced my Grandpa to go home for a bit and my uncle drove him home this morning. My gramma died only 10 minutes after he left.

My Gramma passed away as peacefully as she could shortly after 8 am this morning.  I love you, Gramma.  Rest in Peace.