Once again, I need people's input on a dilemma that I'm having. I'll try to keep this brief.
For the past 5 years or so, my *** has been going to Mexico for 2 months over the summer to visit and tend to my grandmother. Every year, my grandmother gets weaker, her health deteriorates, and she talks more and more about wanting to die. She has basically been majorly depressed her whole life, and her current situation doesn't help her.
Last Friday my *** returned from her annual trip with some grim tidings: my grandmother's health is to the point where if I wanna see her again I need to go NOW. Every year my uncle, who is a doctor, tells us that she might not make it another year because of her deteriorating health. This year it sounds much more serious: she has dangerously low ***** pressure which, when she has taken the medication for it, has turned into dangerously high ***** pressure, seizures, and tachycardia. Fortunately every time that has happened my uncle has been around and has been able to stabilize her, but, like he says, the next time it happens he might not be able to stabilize her, or even be there when it happens. With that in mind, I thought it imperative that I go see her immediately, so I bought a ticket for this Sunday.
As she was telling me of my grandmother's state, I noticed some really nasty bruises on my ***'s arm. When I asked her about it, she nonchalantly mentioned that she had been diagnosed with something called purpura the day before, and that it could be life-threatening. Basically, her ***** doesn't contain enough platelets to clot a *****, so any kind of contact creates a bruise, which keeps getting bigger and darker. Some of her bruises were black and as big as my fist. She said that the cure for it was ingestion of vitamins K and C.
Saturday she apparently spent in bed feeling exhausted, and her ******** extended to her throat on Saturday night, so my *** took her to the hospital on Sunday morning. They ran all sorts of tests on her, and determined that her body was producing enough platelets, but they were disappearing for some reason. While they were running tests, she complained of a headache and seeing dark spots, so they did another MRI on her, and discovered that the cause of the spots she was seeing was that she had just had a cerebral hemorrhage.
They transferred her to UCSF medical center and were ready to perform neurosurgery on her when they determined that the ***** was not big enough to warrant surgery, but they needed to admit her into the ICU. Over the next few days she has gone from lucid and spirited, to having her speech severely slowed and having memory lapses, to only being able to say a few words at a time, to almost complete *************** yesterday. When I left the hospital last night she was responding to stimuli such as loud noises and being shaken with either nods or shakes of her head, but she was otherwise ***********. Even when she opened her eyes she wasn't seeing anything.
At this point, the doctors still have no idea what's wrong with her, but they're still doing tests, and giving her ***** transfusions every 6 to 8 hours. They say that they're confident they can find an answer eventually.
Here's where my dilemma comes in: what do I do? Do I leave my *** in her current state to go visit my grandmother for a week for what could be the last time I see her, or do I stay by my ******'s side and watch what happens? Throughout my life I have been very close to both of them, so this is not an easy choice for me.
Again, any thoughts, comments, observations, insults, etc. from you are welcome.
For the past 5 years or so, my *** has been going to Mexico for 2 months over the summer to visit and tend to my grandmother. Every year, my grandmother gets weaker, her health deteriorates, and she talks more and more about wanting to die. She has basically been majorly depressed her whole life, and her current situation doesn't help her.
Last Friday my *** returned from her annual trip with some grim tidings: my grandmother's health is to the point where if I wanna see her again I need to go NOW. Every year my uncle, who is a doctor, tells us that she might not make it another year because of her deteriorating health. This year it sounds much more serious: she has dangerously low ***** pressure which, when she has taken the medication for it, has turned into dangerously high ***** pressure, seizures, and tachycardia. Fortunately every time that has happened my uncle has been around and has been able to stabilize her, but, like he says, the next time it happens he might not be able to stabilize her, or even be there when it happens. With that in mind, I thought it imperative that I go see her immediately, so I bought a ticket for this Sunday.
As she was telling me of my grandmother's state, I noticed some really nasty bruises on my ***'s arm. When I asked her about it, she nonchalantly mentioned that she had been diagnosed with something called purpura the day before, and that it could be life-threatening. Basically, her ***** doesn't contain enough platelets to clot a *****, so any kind of contact creates a bruise, which keeps getting bigger and darker. Some of her bruises were black and as big as my fist. She said that the cure for it was ingestion of vitamins K and C.
Saturday she apparently spent in bed feeling exhausted, and her ******** extended to her throat on Saturday night, so my *** took her to the hospital on Sunday morning. They ran all sorts of tests on her, and determined that her body was producing enough platelets, but they were disappearing for some reason. While they were running tests, she complained of a headache and seeing dark spots, so they did another MRI on her, and discovered that the cause of the spots she was seeing was that she had just had a cerebral hemorrhage.
They transferred her to UCSF medical center and were ready to perform neurosurgery on her when they determined that the ***** was not big enough to warrant surgery, but they needed to admit her into the ICU. Over the next few days she has gone from lucid and spirited, to having her speech severely slowed and having memory lapses, to only being able to say a few words at a time, to almost complete *************** yesterday. When I left the hospital last night she was responding to stimuli such as loud noises and being shaken with either nods or shakes of her head, but she was otherwise ***********. Even when she opened her eyes she wasn't seeing anything.
At this point, the doctors still have no idea what's wrong with her, but they're still doing tests, and giving her ***** transfusions every 6 to 8 hours. They say that they're confident they can find an answer eventually.
Here's where my dilemma comes in: what do I do? Do I leave my *** in her current state to go visit my grandmother for a week for what could be the last time I see her, or do I stay by my ******'s side and watch what happens? Throughout my life I have been very close to both of them, so this is not an easy choice for me.
Again, any thoughts, comments, observations, insults, etc. from you are welcome.
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