July 09, 2003
Grama Sprong’s Situation, 30 June 2003
[This is the entry I sent in e-mail when I couldn’t access my blog via the dial-up connection at the farm :-( ]
Hello all,
Let me preface this by saying that I am not so egotistical as to assume that all of you check my blog on any regular basis—but I know there have been some e-mails recently that I’ve not responded to in a timely fashion, so I want to make sure everyone knows what my situation is.
First of all, I am dialing up to my Roadrunner account, and dial-up bites the big one (that’s the most genteel thing I can come up with). My connection keeps getting dropped, which definitely hinders any blog entries. Compounding the dial-up issue is that when I tried to create a new blog entry just now, I got the message that karlhub.com was not responding, so go figure.
Also, it’s been busy here at the farm. Mom was gone last Wednesday and Thursday in St. Louis, and Daddy & I kept little Jonathan busy. One night we ate at the good steakhouse in Leavenworth, and our table was a sight to see—the three of us sitting around the table, each of us reading our own book! I loved it.
Today I went to visit Grama Sprong. The nursing home had called over the weekend to say that she’d gone into a decline, and that was certainly true. I don’t know if she registered that I was there or not. I had taken some lotions with me to rub on her hands and feet, and I did do that. I also held her hand a lot and nattered on about various things. After a while I decided to give her a break from my voice and just held her hand while I read my book. Then I sat off to the side while the aides attended to her and repositioned her, and after that I tortured her with some of my singing—some of my favorite nursery rhymes that I’ve learned for Jonathan as well as the song she used to sing me to sleep with (“O, Soldier soldier will you marry me…”)
when I stayed the night at her house. I also learned how to apply moisturizing cream to her lips and to drip water into her mouth with a spongy swab thing; she has oxygen tubes in her nose, and she was breathing with her mouth open, which had gotten very dry. She was unable to communicate with me at all, either by moving any part of her body or by speaking. She seems to be at the point where she doesn’t sleep—her eyes remained open the whole time, without blinking, I believe. They seemed to have a cloud over them, or a film. The bottoms of her feet are purple because there’s no oxygen getting to them. I spent about three hours there and intend to return tomorrow for a while. I feel that even if she doesn’t know it’s her granddaughter Elizabeth there, that at least she may get the feeling that someone who cares about her and wishes her well is there with her. I sure hope for her sake that this stage does not last long.
Jonathan is having a lovely time out here. Last night he saw his first rainbow in the sky, and he is loving to play solitaire on the computer with his Gram (when they finish a game, he says “our goose is cooked”, which sends him into a belly laugh). He and his Boppa went into Leavenworth today to return a DVD and get a newspaper, and they also went to a park for about a quarter of an hour (couldn’t stay longer due to lack of hat and lack of sunscreen—Boppa didn’t want to get in trouble). When I arrived back at the farm from Lawrence, Jonathan and Gram were sitting out on the deck playing Kerplunk and having a lovely time. Every night after he’s ready for bed, Jonathan gets to call his daddy on the phone and speak with him—he looks forward to it greatly. I’m sure I’ll be persona non grata again upon our return to Austin! Dale will be the man of the hour then . . .
So, this is essentially the blog entry I would have written had I been able to stay connected to the Internet and had I been able to access karlhub.com.
Love to all,
Elizabeth