Thoughts

I feel like I should be filling you in on my life since March, but all I can think about it how my life has been since May 15th. A day that I had been so excited for and been waiting for, turned out to be nothing like what I expected it to be. I was suppose to go on a birthday adventure with my friend, yet ended up cancelling the trip all together because we both had loved ones that got put into the hospital that day. My grandfather, Yaya was taken to the hospital because he was found passed out in his room in the morning, I got the call around lunch time that he was sitting at the ER. I thought it was just like any other time he was being checked in. I got a text from my little sister asking me when I was going on my trip, I told her after work and she said okay. I felt like it was a little weird. I think about a hour later she text to tell me he was in the hospital. I asked if she thought I should come home and she said it was up to me with in minutes my older sister told me what was going on and within minutes of that my little sister said yeah I think you should come on back. I was out the door in a second. When I got there he was still unresponsive and we were waiting to get into he ICU. My dad was there but then left to go back to the restaurant and work. I stuck around with my sister and had to help in different ways. When I got the okay to head on to my vacation I got a call from my friend with a message saying to call as soon as I can when I called I learned that her father had been checked into the hospital. I instantly thought I would take her to see her dad, but I realized that maybe it was the best thing that I didn't go. I mean I am not at all happy that her dad was in the hospital too, but if he wasn't I think I would have made the decision to go on my trip because I wouldn't have wanted to disappoint and I would have missed some quality time. I also didn't know that my family and I would be spending so much time in and out of the hospital with him and really just how hard it was. He did get to go home which was really exciting. My little sister, mom and I went to Chicago over Memorial Day weekend and it was fun but lately I keep thinking about that time over and over again. Life after that trip went somewhat back to normal, my parents took on a lot of the work in watching my grandfather but on Wednesday my mom called and told me Yaya had to go back to the hospital and needed help so out the door I went again. They actually said when they were letting him leave that he looked better now then when they let him go home last time. He was talking about a lot of really random things while we were there. It was really really hard to watch and hear him say things. The next couple of days are actually a little blurry to me. Things started happening like he was seeing a man clothed in white, seeing dead people, and so many other things. I started to really wonder if this was it for him, but I kept thinking about how the doctor said he looked better. On Friday he asked my dad if it was Sunday yet and when he told me that I thought Sunday may be a good but probably a bad day. And Sunday came and he actually looked better, he was actually drinking something, we had gotten a bunch of gunk out of him, he was laughing, recognized folks and just seemed fine, but that evening he no longer was breathing and my aunt and uncle had to preform CPR. I just don't understand how it all happened one minute he was laughing and we all went upstairs to eat dinner and celebrate my dad's birthday while he took a nap. He was telling us he was fine and for us to go that we needed to go. We all ate dinner when the guy from Lincare came brought a machine we requested. My dad met him downstairs to get the machine set up, the guy acknowledged Yaya and he acknowledged him. The guy walked over to plug something in and then asked my dad something, in asking my dad he didn't know the answer so he went up to get my uncle to ask him. Uncle went down with him got the machine tube set up, while my sister was trying to test Yaya's oxygen level, but couldn't get anything, she thought the machine was broken. Uncle went over and realized he wasn't breathing was yelling at him to get him to acknowledge. I was upstairs for all of that but all of the sudden I hear move your cars! move your cars! COME ON! I went running down the steps and can tell my dad is pure panic, everyone else is scrambling around not sure what to think at all. After Liz get her keys and runs out I am looking for moms keys but realize dad is in it. I go to the street to talk to my dad and he is telling me Yaya stopped breathing and the ambulance was on the way...at the moment my heart broke...kind of the same way it happened when I just wrote it out. It was like everything just dropped my heart, my stomach, everything just felt so empty. I stood outside with my dad because he was a nervous wreck, when the ambulance pulled in he went down through the garage and I went through the front door and down the steps to my crying family, trying to help get them out of the room as my aunt and uncle tried to save him. I remember running into my little sister who kept telling me no this can't be it i love him so much, my aunt that kept screaming that's my dad, my mom just crying and couldn't stop telling me he was more of a parent to him than her own, my older sister crying yet angry because people wanted her out of the room. I can see my aunt and uncle preforming CPR on him and hearing my older sister crying and just holding my little sister telling her it would be okay. I remember seeing the EMT team take him off the bed and put him on the floor and tearing his clothes off. I remember going upstairs to our white living room and seeing my aunt, mom, little sister, cousin and family sitting there crying and crying and crying. I remember the running up and down the steps checking on the family downstairs and the family upstairs. So many very vivid pictures in my head from that night. I remember looking and realizing that this was it, he was so lifeless on the floor. The team was trying everything they could but you could tell they thought it was it, the look on my uncle and aunt's faces told me it all. I remember the moment that my uncle shook his head in what I believe was probably a question from my older sister or dad asking if that was it. He's head hung low and shook it and the next thing I see is my older sister in his arms. Its a moment I will never forget, that day will be one that always is in my mind. My family being there together and just the different amounts of emotions going on for everything was hard but good for us all. I truthfully have no idea how long they worked on him it seems like it was just seconds sometimes and sometimes it seems like he was down for hours, I think they did say he was down for about a hour, they were ready to call it but protocol says it can't be done until they are at the hospital, which was the best thing for us. We all loaded into the cars to go to the hospital to say goodbye to him. I knew it would be hard to say goodbye to him but it was even worse knowing we were doing it on my dad's birthday. My dad and Yaya have been together for 57 years pretty much. We always joke that my dad always got his way when it came to Yaya and on the way to the hospital he said over and over again not on my birthday. Which I am very glad it didn't technically happen on his birthday but I do think it will always be hard to celebrate because of what all happened on his birthday. We all piled in different cars I stuck around to make sure everything was taken care of at the house and then left. When the first few cars got their the ambulance wasn't there yet, but when I go there it was. They had put us in a room to wait and basically we were waiting to call it. In this I wondered if I would be able to say my goodbye to him because they had said there were too many people in the room already. Which in some ways annoyed me because I felt like I deserved to be back there. But Yaya gave my dad one last birthday gift. He came back...well somewhat he had a pulse and he was breathing again. My family got excited but they kept telling us to manage our expectations. But my family doesn't sometimes get that. The doctors said it was a miracle my older sister says it was God. Either way I am so thankful for that. It was really hard though. It seemed to be the longest night ever though...my dad stayed in the hospital with him that night...we stayed until about 2 am though. When we got home my older sister thought it would be nice to just all lay on the couch so we did, but none of us really could sleep. We got up early the next morning from a call from my dad basically telling us it was time and we needed to get to the hospital. I don't think any of thought he would come back from it but I think there was still a slight bit of hope. But we were able to all get up and be with him in the morning and say our goodbyes together as a family. I wish I would have said more I tried really hard to be there for everyone else that I am not sure I took "advantage" of it all, but I felt like my family was saying everything that I wanted to say and more. I just wonder if I ever told him I loved him and I wonder if he really knew, i am sure I probably should have said it that day just in case, but I didn't because I am also stubborn and now regretting it. There is more to tell to this story but I think that's about all I have to say right now...its just so hard really. He was truly a very special man that I miss every single day, hour, minute, second really. I just don't even know how I truly feel it just hurts so so much.