Gram...

The last 18 hours have been hard. My grandmother was taken to the hospital yesterday and the diagnosis is not good. It was discovered that she did have a perforated colon which meant that her body's waste was spreading through her body and poisoning her. She was transported by ambulance to a bigger hospital and needed emergency surgery. She was quite sick before the surgery and was taken to the OR around 10:30 and was out of surgery around 2:15 or so in the morning. The doctor says that it was caused by the return of the tumor that had been removed in the fall. At the time the doctor who had done the Nov. surgery felt that the tumor was cancerous, but that is was a kind that was very slow growing and predicted that it would cause no other problems for Gram. Even doctors can be wrong... so the surgeon last night removed what he could, but said that it would have been impossible to get it all...so as I understand it, Gramie will have to have some chemotherapy treatments and then take some meds that will hopefully keep things from growing again. Nuts, right? Gram has been through so much. She is tough. She survived surgery...but the doc lsat night told my parents that the surgery wouldn't be the hardest part of this process. He said that the hardest part would be Gramie's body having to fight the infection caused by the poison in her body. Gram is in ICU and they were planning to keep her sedated enough so that she wouldn't realize just how badly she felt. However, she did better last night than expected and they are not giving her as much medicine as anticipated...

Mom and dad are exhausted they were at the hospital until 2:30ish this morning, and of course were up early. While Gram is in ICU and getting one on one care, mom and dad decided that their camping season has come to a close for this year. They didn't have much time there this summer because they had spent so much time with me for my surgery. So... their friends, Donna and Kenny, are helping them. Dad and Kenny are heading to the campground to bring the camper, boat, and kayaks home and Donna was going to ride to the hospital with mom today. (about a 50 minute drive.)

I know I will be heading up there at some point, I just have to figure out when...I think it would be more helpful to wait a few days, when Gramie becomes a little more alert...and while Gram is in ICU Mom's plan is to go see her each day, but not spend too much time there each day in hopes of conserving energy for when Gram gets out of ICU and may need someone there more often.

So Jill... We will get to visit this week, but it may end up being in our hometown... I will call you later to talk about it.

I am tired...was still awake at 4:30 this morning. Meg was here last night, which was great. She helped me pass the time and distract me a little. (In addition to doing my laundry...) Thanks Meg...