We're at the hospital right now, "we" being my father, Aunt Mary, and myself. We're in Grandpa's room, and he certainly looks a lot worse than he did when last I saw him, which was a good six years ago. He's lost almost all of his muscle mass, his skin is weak, he's covered with bruises from the falls, and he'ss still somewhat confused. The confusion is hopefully because his salt levels are still very low. Hyponatremia cannot be corrected too rapidly, as just duping enough sodium into the blood to restore normal levels will cause all sorts of hormone imbalances that lead to heart failure or central pontine myelinolysis which is exceptionally nasty.

Dad gave Grandpa his Christmas presents while we were here, some popcorn. Except that Grandpa says he hasn't been eating as much popcorn as he did last year, so the popcorn Dad gave him last year is still in the fridge at home. Whoops.

In case I didn't make it clear, this is pretty fucking depressing.

UPDATE: Next, we went to the nursing home where Grandma is staying. She's not there for an IV (like I had thought), she's there because she's still on supplemental oxygen. They are trying to wean her off, but it's taking time.

Grandma was in much better shape than her husband. She's wearing a brace to reduce her hunch as her fractured vertebrae heal, but she gets around with a walker. Mentally she was in fine shape, a good conversationalist as usual. She was looking forward to getting out and living in a somewhat more independant manner again. She was also obviously concerned about Grandpa.

Posted by: Boviate at 05:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 273 words, total size 2 kb.