My grandma, 91 years old, had a stroke three weeks ago. One moment she was talking with a nursing home aide, and the next moment she collapsed. She was taken to the hospital and spent a couple of weeks there, where I visited her with my dad during Passover. Now she’s back in the nursing home, where my parents and my brother and I visited her on Mother’s Day. She has apparently recovered all she is going to – which is not much.
She’s confined to a bed. The left side of her body is paralyzed, and her head is turned to the right. She can hardly speak, and she can’t smile, but she can nod her head in response to questions and she seems almost completely lucid. We brought her some roses and a Mother’s Day balloon, which she looked at and seemed to appreciate. And when I gave her my hand, she squeezed it – hard.
She’s so lucid that at one point I realized she was trying to say my brother’s girlfriend’s name in order to ask where she was. (She was visiting her family in Canada.) Even debilitated by a stroke, my grandma is curious about everyone. But so much else has changed.
This is a woman who has always loved food, but because she can no longer swallow, she is now denied the pleasure of eating. Instead, she’s hooked up to an intravenous feeding tube. She also likes to read and do crossword puzzles, but she can’t do those things anymore, either. So during our visit, my dad read to her from a mystery novel.
There was a radio playing in the room, which my aunt must have brought over previously. It was playing Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, and the piece lasted through our entire visit. It was in a minor key, appropriately, but its agitated intellectual complexity made the visit more bearable for me.
That evening, my family went out for a Mother’s Day dinner. It was just the four of us – no girlfriend, no boyfriend, just my parents and my brother and I. I can’t remember the last time the four of us spent time together without anyone else. It was lots of fun – it was a Brazilian restaurant where they keep bringing you skewers of meat – and it reminded me of when we used to live overseas, which was a big bonding experience for our family. And yet we weren’t two parents and two kids; we were four adults, having a good time together.
It wasn’t until later that night, back in the city, comfy in bed next to a sleeping Matt, that my emotions about my grandma hit me.
One, I realized that I’m glad my grandpa never had to see my grandma in this condition. He died two and a half years ago at age 94. This would have devastated him.
Two, I thought about coming out to her. I’ve never told her I’m gay, but her death seems closer than it used to, and I sort of want her to know. But how cowardly is it to tell her something when she can’t even respond? I don’t think she’d mind that I’m gay. In fact, she might resent that I waited to tell her until she couldn’t respond. I want her to know that I’m happy and not alone. And yet – I’m still scared.
At any rate, I can’t believe that this woman – my grandma, who is stubborn, smart, overweight, loves food, never forgets a name or face, interjects comments into conversations whenever she wants, selectively hears what she wants to and ignores the rest – has been reduced to this. Lying in a hospital bed, connected to a feeding tube, communicating via nods and hand squeezes.
Tears came into my eyes, and eventually I fell asleep.
Sorry to hear about your Grandmother. I lost my Dad last year at 84 from a stroke. It is hard to watch them struggle and their quality of life change in a split second. Don’t worry about the Gay thing. I never told my Dad but after he passed a friend of his said that he had talked about me being gay several times and he had know problem with it. Your Grandmother sounds like a sharp lady and she’s probably figured out your story by now.
Hope things get better and I enjoy your site.
Tell her you’re happy and not alone — and bring Matt. I’ll bet she’d love to meet him.
Get more things you can read to her. What were her favorite authors?
Music too. Lots of music.
I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother’s stroke, but don’t give up hope of improvement. Sometimes, people who have had strokes will take several weeks to show any real progress.
As for coming out to her, you might be surprised. She may have figured it out already, but she has been playing along, so that she doesn’t make you uncomfortable.
I had decided not to tell my nonagenarian grandmother about my being gay, and then, after my Dad died, she just asked me one day, “where’s your boyfriend today?” Stopped me right in my tracks.
Silly me. After 90+ years, a smart woman like that is going to realize that something’s up. She had met Marc, who had been my partner for a couple of years at that point, but I really didn’t think she had any idea that he was more than a friend.
When a smart woman has lived that long, she can get to be very perceptive. More to the point, you might want to tell her and add, “I wish I had told you sooner, so that we could talk about this, and I hope you get better so we can have that chat soon! I just wanted you to know who I really am and that I’m happy.” That will be a good thing for her to hear.
I must concur. Tell her. Take Matt to meet her. Apologize for not telling her sooner. Tell her how happy you are and how loved you feel.
I’m sorry to hear about your gradma. I know this is a difficult time seeing someone you’ve known all your life in this situation. I watched my papaw go through the same thing.
Since you are comfortable with yourself and happy with Matt, why not take him to meet her? That is if he feels comfortable doing it. Even if you don’t use the words, “Grandma, I’m gay.”, she’ll understand that Matt is a very special person to you.
I agree with Jess, after 91 years on this earth your grandma is very perceptive. I’m sure the last thing on her mind is to challenge you or judge you. Take the time to share the company of two very special people in your life. Your Grandma deserves it. Matt deserves it. But most important, you deserve it.
Sorry to hear about yer grandmother!
My absolute sympathies. My own grandmother had a stroke near Y2K, which she was 80 (a kid, I guess, compared to your grandmother), and passed away around Mother’s Day three years after — not enormously surprising, since strokes may hint at the condition of the cardiovascular system, and the body’s fragility from age.
My grandmother recovered with even less speech than your grandmother, and never regained much ability to initiate speech aside from choosing options offered by others to repeat back.
But, she also began with one-sided paralysis, and with therapy, eventually regained the ability to swallow, and the ability to stand and walk short distances on her own if someone were nearby. I think she took great pride in that, and her determination was a lesson to her whole family in how to be a goal-setter at any age.
I know that both age and health coverage can, coldly, factor into the cost-benefit anaylsis of how much effort to put into whatever limited degree of recovery might be possible. And we think, don’t revered matriarchs like our grandmothers deserve peace and leisure in their remaining time?
That said, please be certain you and your family have researched all the theapy options you might have available (your post only mentions your grandmother returning to the nursing home). Without any physical therapy (PT), the lack of muscle tension on the paralyzed side of your grandmother’s body could easily result in plexus, a very painful kind of nerve damage. Special medical equipment helps prevent thrombosis clots in the immobile limbs.
Recreational therapy (RT) can help you find activities that keep you grandmother sharp and entertained — my grandmother remained a mean Uno player (using a makeshift device to help hold the cards), and wouldn’t miss her evening game shows even if she couldn’t shout out answers at the TV anymore.
Speech therapy, through daily practice, can help tease out what speech a stroke victim may be able to recover, and offer alternative ways to communicate needs, such as using a picture board. Seemingly “mute” stroke victims may still be able to repeat speech, or even sing the lyrics to favorite old songs in tune, and may be comforted to know their voice still works to some degree.
Depending on recovery from physical therapy, occupational therapy (OT) — at the age of our grandmothers — might actually deal with issues like techniques for easier bathing, eating with less assistance or helping with dressing and grooming chores. Recovering even a bit of function here can help a stroke survivor regain a sense of autonomy, reducing possible shame of “being a burden to family,” and make care much less laborious for providers.
Although your grandmother may maintain a brave face for relatives, it’s natural at any age to have down days and flagging motivation after a medical crisis like a stroke. It’s beneficial to have a follow-up specialist who would recognize the signs and assist with coping, to discourage the person from shutting down. Hopefully, your nursing home can arrange for this kind of support, as opposed to those facilities that give nursing homes a bad name by liberally doling out prescriptions for sedatives and antidepressants to ease their own workload.
Your grandmother may only have a short time left, which may certainly motivate you to get as settled as possible with your relationship to her. But, she might also have years left, which is an incentive to not just settle for unchallenged decline. Don’t just listen to an insurer’s preferences about your grandmother’s quality of life, also investigate options Medicare will cover, and be prepared to fight a bit.
Wishing your family strength now and in the days and months to come…
Thanks, Mike.
*hugs*
I can’t say anything my predecessors haven’t except I know what it feels like, and I’m sorry, too. And, yes, my grandmother already knew, and said “What took you so long?”