Worry (Update)

Update

We went to see my grandfather last night at the hospital, and when we first got there I was … well, it didn’t look good. He looked – for the first time ever – feeble. He was sleeping, but his skin was gaunt and he was labored in his breathing. My aunt Fran was there waiting for him to wake up, and so she filled us in on what little she knew, filling in the stories we had already gotten. Not too long after we arrived, he woke up but was disoriented and confused. He couldn’t remember where he was, and sounded horrible – his voice was a bare whisper and he could barely move even to get a drink of water. His answers to our questions about how he was feeling were labored and didn’t always make sense. After a few minutes of consciousness, he fell back to sleep. I was really worried – this was a shell of the man that I have known my whole life.

Later, however, they brought in some saline to get his fluids back up (he had pulled out the IVs repeatedly the night before in his delirium, so they had stopped giving him IV fluids) – and the effect was almost instantaneous. He seemed more alert, his voice got stronger and his color looked better. He still confused Shari with my sister Cara, and needed to be shown the pictures we brought him again (he didn’t remember seeing them when he woke up the first time), but he was able to remember his partners home phone number, seemed to be able to recall things from the previous night and generally seemed much better. Best of all, he looked more like a man who was ready to get well instead of giving up.

We’re going to see him again tonight and hope that consistent hydration and whatever other treatments he got have continued his path to improvement.