As of Sunday, post-surgery recovery wasn't going so well for Gram. She was miserable and convinced she's going to die there in the hospital so she wouldn't comply with any of their efforts. She was refusing to get up out of the bed, refusing to eat, and refusing visitors. I don't get it, why does she think she's going to die NOW after having eliminated her risk of dying by removing her aneurism?? Jesus Grama, get you bony ass out of bed, eat your food, do what they say and you can go home.

I read a book last year where the main character's grandma decided when husband died that she had nothing to live for and stopped getting out of bed, fully expecting to die. But all that happened was she layed around for twenty-some years being depressed and bored. I don't want to see my grandma depressed and bored, but she's stubborn, and she's convinced that all this effort is for nothing. Argh. She told me she doesn't feel like she's got any dignity anymore, and nothing is working right.

Then things got so much worse. It seems that Gram knew something we didn't. On Monday afternoon she had a stroke. A bad one. When all the scans finally came back and were analyzed, we were told it was probably a clot that caused it, and that it damaged her frontal lobe, something at the back of the brain, and something at the top, too. If that weren't bad enough, she started becoming really agitated and having seizures so they knocked her out with Ativan. This is just awful. My whole family is a wreck.

What's weird is that Monday morning my mom was down at the hospital visiting and Gram was really happy, euphoric actually. So my mom was really encouraged, but then right after she left, my Gram had her stroke. Later mom remembers that Gram was also kind of confused, she thought it was nine at night instead of nine in the morning, although they keep those ICU rooms so dark and gloomy and no one can maintain any set sleep schedule in a hospital, so I'd get confused too. She also told mom she thought she might be hallucinating--she thought she was peeling layers of paper with her hands, but when she looked down she was just playing with her blanket. Mom though it was a little weird, but not serious.

Yesterday was a really scary day, and I hope she starts to get better. She has at least stopped having seizures, and is finally waking up, but doesn't seem to know anyone. The doctors have no prognosis, no course of action, they're just waiting for the swelling in her brain to go down before they can evaluate anything at all. So now we have to do some more waiting.