About two and a half weeks ago my grandma (for those that know my family I'm speaking of my Dad's mother) was told that something was 'on her brain'. Let me back up a bit ... well, let me back up about 2 years. (Please forgive me if I'm telling this wrong ... )
My grandma had been experiencing numbness on her left side for a while. If I remember right .. it's been about 2 years. She kept calling it neuropathy, but I don't know if that's something that the doctors told her, or if that's something that she came up with. The doctors put recently put her on gabupentin (which is a generic for neurontin) for that issue. Then ... a few months ago, she started having a problem with one of her eyes. I don't remember which eye it was, but she had to close it in order for her to see properly. Anyway, someone convinced her to go to a neurologist. again, i don't know if this is something that a friend convinced her to do, or if her primary care doctor told her to do it.
Regardless of how she got there, she went. The doctor did some sort of scan, a CAT scan I think, and in my grandma's words "they found a blobby on my brain". She didn't seem to be too concerned, so at that point I wasn't either. This was 2 weeks ago.
So, last Wednesday night, apparently things got a little hairy. I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point between the hours of Wednesday night and Thursday morning, grandma got up out of bed to use the bathroom. Somehow, she fell, and apparently she fell pretty badly. Her story is that she fell and got tangled up in her walker. Apparently no one knows if that's what truly happened or not. But again, regardless of how she ended up on the floor, she was there. Hurt pretty badly. She was taken to the ER, where they decided that she needed to be transported by ambulance to UCSF.
Fast forward to today ... I just got off the phone with my Aunt. Grandma had a biopsy done yesterday. The results, well the preliminary results are that it's a malignant tumor. It even has a name. It's called Glioblastoma. I've been told that it's the same type of brain cancer that Ted Kennedy had. And we all know what happened to him.
So I"m a bag full of mixed emotions. I'm beyond sad, angry, confused, worried ... everything you can possibly think of I've got it going through my head right now.
I made a promise to my grandma right after my grandfather passed away. I promised her that I would come around more often. I didn't. I hardly even called. I would get pissed off whenever anyone would give me crap for not calling her, so much so that I often said "the phone works both ways". I've been a shitty granddaughter ... I know that. And now ... there's nothing that I can do to make it right. I'm 8 hours away. I can't just jump in my car and be at her house in 10 minutes, like I could before and never did.
I know this is something that everyone thinks about. All of the .. "if I'd only known, I would have done this ... ". I know if I continue to think about it, I'll drive myself crazy... unfortunately, I don't know how I'll be able to NOT think about it.
Until next time ...
