Jenerally Speaking

Well, the past few days have been stressful, to say the least. I have two grandparents still living. I have a grandmother (who we call Oma Renn) – she lives with us – and another grandmother (Oma Schultz) who lives about 45 minutes away from us.
Oma Renn is never completely healthy. When we ask her how she is feeling she always answers in the same way: “Not so good” She has been in America for over 50 years and still hasn’t grasped the English language very well. Although she lives with us, I can’t say that we have gotten very close to her. Her German accent makes it difficult to communicate with her most of the time. She is also very high-maintenance and is happiest when everyone is caring for her and worrying about her. When anyone else is sick, she is usually very concerned about that person, but only in relation to how is affects her. She is small, frail and can be sweet, but she is very very needy.

My other grandmother is a little more Americanized and self-sufficient. She is addicted to home remedies and lives her life reading homeopathic books and newsletters.
I can’t recall her ever being sick.
Well, this grandmother had a heart attack last Friday. After feeling chest pain Friday morning, she quickly downed a glass of eggplant juice and took a spoonful of molasses and apple cider vinegar, but soon discovered that the pain would not go away.
My mother finally convinced her, by telephone, that she needed to call 911 and to get herself to a hospital.
It turns out that she had been told a few years ago that her blood pressure was very high and she had been given medicine for it….but she never took it.
She relied on eggplant juice to keep her healthy.

So, now my aunt and my cousin are staying with us this week. They flew in from Georgia and have been visiting my grandmother every day. According the tests, a number of her arteries are blocked and they look as though they have been “chewed up”.
After 3 days in the hospital my grandmother is also beginning to show signs of dementia. She is disoriented and keeps asking for my grandfather (who passed away 12 years ago). It’s a little scary to see someone start to deteriorate like this.
My father wants to head over to her house while she is still in the hospital and toss out every single homeopathic item she has stored there. How frustrating this is for him…for all of us.
They are talking about putting her into a rehab facility for a week or so to help her get back on her feet again. Then, it appears that she might come here to live for a few weeks.
Our house is large, but I can imagine that it won’t be large enough for all of us. It’s amazing how quickly things change. Life sure does throw some amazing curveballs sometimes.