An Unexpected Day

Shortly after waking up this morning I got a call - my grandma is in the ER and going to be admitted. I got dressed, washed my face and headed over to the hospital. Thankfully the migraine that's been with me since Tuesday evening finally resolved overnight so I was in good shape for the bright lights and stress of an ER.

The emergency passed but she is now on a ventilator in the ICU for a couple days at which time the docs hope she can take over breathing on her own again. There is no way to know for sure what the outcome here is. We simply will have to wait these long couple days and see what happens. She has been very clear about her wishes regarding ventilators so if she can't manage on her own...well let's just hope for everyone's sake that she can.

She suffered from migraines almost all her life. Most of it when back in the day when doctors were still blaming patients for their "pain". There were no rescue medications to take and there certainly weren't any preventatives to try. Fortunately, she didn't have them as frequently as I (and many of you) have them. We talked a lot about our migraines over the years. I was always comforted by some similarities we shared. She always kept her place fairly dark. Any light that she turned on was low wattage and well covered. People would come over and want to open the shades and turn on lights so they could "see". But she, my sister (who sometimes has migraines too) and I have always been more comfortable in the low light.

Today in the ER she was sedated because she was on the ventilator but I could tell that she wasn't comfortable. The stretcher was hard, it was too cold for her with just two of those thin hospital blankets, and there were so many bright florescent lights shining directly down on her closed eyes. Eye lids are no match for that kind of lighting. I wasn't at all surprised to see her calm and comfortably sleeping once she was in the ICU in a bed, with real blankets and only one dim light on far enough behind her head that her eyes were clear.