Wind beneath my Wings

I love this picture, we were cleaning up the hall at my cousin Kortney's grad party and my mom put the girls on this cart and Grandma sang and clapped her hands while mom danced the little girls around. This is just "so them".

Grandma modeling her new hat at Christmas.

On July 4th, my mom and Grandma on the pontoon. Grandma loves silly hats!

I need some prayers for my sweet Grandma Verna. For the past 3 weeks (since Myah started school) I have been visiting the hospital on a regular basis. For starters my Uncle Mike had prostate cancer and had the surgery to remove the cancer and is slowly but surely getting better. My Grandma lives with my aunt and uncle so while he was in the hospital she was on her own at home. In the past that would not be a deal. But this year has posed some problems for Grandma. She went to Florida over spring break and got sunburned on her ankle area, she started getting some pretty bad scabs on her sunburned area and since she is a diabetic and has poor circulation in her feet these scabs have become her worst enemy. So much so that she will not walk. The sores on her feet have spread and are very painful, she has had skin grafts, goes in weekly to a wound specialist to have her feet/ankles re wrapped and cannot sleep very well because they are so painful. After Uncle Mike came home from the hospital Grandma fell a few times and could not get herself back up. My aunt called me one morning and asked if I could come help because we need to take Grandma to the hospital, 2 days after my uncle had left. We got her in and they named off many things wrong with her, they told us had we waited another day she would have been dead. That was almost 2 weeks ago.

She has been getting better it seemed and was going to be moved to a rehab floor to get her walking, her feet are still in much pain but they told her she can't go home until she can walk. Bless her heart she is a fighter! Yesterday afternoon my aunt called and said that while they were sitting with Grandma she fell backwards in the bed, apparantly she died at that moment and the nurse came running in with a crash cart and they were able to bring her back and put her on a respirator. They determined she had a heart attack and would most likely have another one in 24-48 hours. We knew Grandma never wanted to live on a machine, she was fighting them, trying to take it out. The family decided to ask Grandma what to do, she made a gesture of "pray for me" and take it out. So we did just that, and we waited to see what would happen. The nurse came out and said she was doing well and was talking. We all had said our goodbyes to her beforehand so it was a gift to go back and have a conversation with her and hear her voice again. She would not stop talking! She was very coherent and amazed us with her memory. We do not know what today, tomorrow or forever will bring for Grandma but I am praying that she can come out of this. I know she is ready to die, she has told us so but we aren't ready yet. I don't know how I would handle losing my dad and my grandma within 9 months of each other. We have been through this before, losing Mark's dad, grandma and my grandma all within 9 weeks. It is not fun.

Last night while I was in the room with her the nurse came in and wanted to take her temperature, she said, "I am not going to take it in your mouth, I am going to take it under your wing" Grandma then replied "the wind beneath my wings". She is a huge music lover, I had to laugh that she would quote a song that has meant so much to our family through the years. She is a hip Grandma and always bougth the presents that we really wanted for Christmas, always had a swimming pool and baby kitties running around, as a little girl I loved that part! Grandma always had a stash of sweets that we loved too! Like my mom says Grandma always had the coolest hippest music playing, she still does. One day she told me she likes the new P-diddy song, I said "who?" she says "you know Puff Daddy, the one who sings Every Breath You Take". She loves to sing, especially "you are my sunshine". My mom and Aunt Katie sang it to her last night even. She is the sunshine of our family and I am praying that this is not the final chapter of her life. We need her, we love her and we would miss her terribly. Please pray for her, for all of us, we are having a difficult time, pray for my Uncle Mike, he has not been able to recooperate properly at all after having major surgery, pray for my mom, who is still grieving over losing my dad, pray for me, I am running around like a mad woman most days. This weekend is Dayton's first homecoming and I am really wanting it to be special for him. I want to enjoy it with him as well. On top of everything else going on , Mark's mom has a broken vertebrae and is in severe pain. She needs prayer too.

Sorry this post is all over the place, but that is how my mind is processing things lately, I am all over the place!!!