Taking charge

February 18, 2005. 6:22 a.m. One month and 18 days after arrival.

I was unable to sleep. At about 1 a.m., my cousin had called to report that, Stella, my grandmother’s youngest sister had died. At 81, she was my grandma’s only living sibling. This meant that Mrs. Lula Mae Walker, 92, was the last of four girls left. I had to tell her. But I decided to wait until after she ate breakfast and got dressed. If I woke her now, she would lose sleep and lose her appetite.  I thought that she would have plenty of time to do that later. So, I let her sleep.

To pass time, I started preparing her clothes for the funeral. She does not wear anything new to funerals. It’s just one of her many ways. I had to choose from what already existed. I found two solid black polyester church-usher-board-looking dresses.  They will not do, I decided.  After more searching, I found a stylish gray, black and white floral patterned dress with a high collar and tapered bodice. I was in the zone that my mother often occupies when life happens, things must be done, loved ones must be consider and it all must be held together without seemingly missing a beat.

I polished grandma’s black size 81/2 wide one-inch pumps, and looked for her funeral lace. I remembered it from my aunt’s funeral almost 30 years ago. It covered grandma’s face while she clung to the casket, her body limp like Mary and Jesus in Bernini’s Pieta. That was my first and only family funeral. This would be my first as an adult and my first public appearance as grandma’s caretaker. I understood it to be an initiation into the adult life of my mom’s people.

I am grandma’s eleventh grandchild. For most of my life, I have lived thousands of miles away from her, visiting only in summer between the end of school and dog days, as Florida’s hurricane season moved into high gear. I always would leave Florida a bit traumatized, feeling that grandma would die without me. Our departures seemed to be preceded by natural and supernatural drama: heavy rains, high-speed winds, thunder and lightning outside and grandma’s no lights no talking and hours of prayer inside. At least five kids and three adults were practically sitting on top of one another glistening with sweat in grandma’s tiny house while on her knees she prayed out loud to a caring yet willful god. Blazing lightning, crashing thunder and repeated supplications to God to protect us, in addition to the radio static and bits of ‘up lifting’ gospel music about death made me think she needed me there to protect her.

I got the chance in January 2005 when my mom needed to return to work in California after she spent her seven month long sabbatical caring for grandma following a stroke. I had recently graduated from journalism school in New York and had ended a long-term relationship. Careers, relationships and or children anchored my four siblings to California. I was a free agent, so I decided to come. I had planned to be with her six months when my mom, with or without my dad, would move to Florida or convince grandma to live in California.

Mom departed four days after I arrived. She had provided me with numerous lists, dates, dosages, and telephone numbers. Grandma eats oatmeal and bananas every morning and over-cooked carrots with every lunch. They help her bowels move, mom said. Take her to the bathroom four times a day before each meal and at bedtime. She told me who had the best price for Depends, the adult diapers that grandma now needed. Look for the five-dollar-off coupons at the pharmacy. She told me which of her five pills were to be taken with each meal. And, she showed me the calendar with the dates to reorder each medication marked. By the time she was ready to go, I was full, unable to store or digest another bit of information. I’d call her if I had questions. At 4 a.m., from my grandma’s front porch, I watched my momma drive away and leave me to care for hers. Now, I was scared and clung to her lists to keep me afloat.

A year later, grandma and I had developed our rhythm. I was more flexible than my mom about meal times, partly because I was less organized. We walked around the house for exercise and watched episodes of Sex and the City on DVD. I had never seen the show before becoming hooked with grandma. After about the third or forth episode, we stopped being embarrassed by the sex scenes. Grandma often accused me of having a vibrator like the character Samantha had in the show. She said she could hear it from her room. Her imaginary hearing was far better than her actual hearing.

Grandma was getting stronger and gaining weight. She could walk to the bathroom on her own. She no longer needed me to clean her rump. I was so comfortable with things that I had decided to do freelance work for the local paper and volunteer at neighborhood reading room. Then, on January 22, while I was bathing grandma, she started to slur her words and her eyes became glazed over. It was as if her brain operated in slow motion. Saliva drooled from the left side of her mouth. Her face was contorted. I called out to her several times. I even slapped her to get a response. I got the same slow motion slurring. I tried to lift her but couldn’t. I was afraid to leave her. She might fall into the tub. I ran, got the phone and called 911. I told them that she might be having a stroke. Then I hugged her and reassured her that she was going to be fine.

The paramedics arrived. I grabbed my purse with her medical information, got her medicines and jumped into the front seat while they assisted grandma in the cabin. I called her doctor and prayed for her life. The stroke was mild. After three weeks in the rehabilitation hospital and with home therapy, she was able to walk again, albeit with a cane.

This past May, I tricked her into getting a colonoscopy. I do not advocate deception, but she refused to go to the doctor after we saw blood in her stool several times. Her visiting nurse thought it might be hemorrhoids.  I decided to have it checked out more thoroughly. Although there were hemorrhoids, there were two benign polyps in her transverse colon and one large polyp in the sigmoid colon, above the rectum. That one was malignant. The standard of care is surgery, even at grandma’s age, her surgeon said. Grandma became depressed after the news and wanted to sleep all day. To her, like many of us, the six-letter word means certain death. I couldn’t think that way, I thought. Grandma needed my eyes to see beyond our collective fears. Together we decided not to tell any relatives in Florida, only my parents and siblings in California.

She first agreed to the surgery. Then, once we left the doctor, she changed her mind. But she often says no until she says yes… until it is time. She took a month to think about it. Then, she decided. We finally told the Florida folks. One of my most arduous caretaker duties is to inform the rest of the family about grandma’s health and well-being. Everyone has suggestions, but little time to follow thorough.  Some warned that if she let doctors cut on her, the cancer would spread. This is the very nonsense we hoped to avoid.  Air does not spread cancer, though many, beyond my family still believe that it does.

Grandma is fine and very proud that she decided to have the procedure. There is still one more decision to make. The CAT scan showed that the cancer had not moved into the liver; however, the pathology on the lymph nodes that were removed showed that six of eight nodes tested positive for cancers.  To have chemotherapy or not; this is the question and our next decision.

As I said earlier, I’m in the zone that my mother often occupies when life happens, things must be done, loved ones must be consider and it all must be held together without seemingly missing a beat. There is very little time to be afraid or to feel overwhelmed, although I am often exhausted.