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Surviving Life

Struggles

By Jes ♥️Published 6 years ago 6 min read
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At the young age of 26, I am a survivor. A survivor or many things such as cancer, life, and daily struggles just to get by. The past 4 years I have been surviving life. Barely getting by, and struggling to what seems like no end in sight. I lost my great grandma about four years ago and this year August 2017, I lost my grandma.

My boyfriend and I had just moved back in with her in 2016 to help her out and take care of her. We took over the bills, shopping, and everything else. My boyfriend even signed up to be her caregiver. Like any family we fought, argued, disagreed, and even didn’t talk for a day or two. But we loved each other. We took her to her appointments and to get all her tests done, she had an array of medical issues. She took many medications every day just to help her. Struggling, as we were, I never let her go without medication or anything else, in fact I’d go without before she would. I missed many of my own appointments just to make sure she was looked after and never alone.

My grandma started forgetting a lot of things and I would be very nice about it and tell her that she had forgotten something she or I had said and she would snap. So we started thinking maybe she was starting to get Alzheimer’s or dementia. But of course she wouldn’t ever want to go in and see her doctor or her doctor wasn’t available for appointments. Becoming frustrated with being accused of things I didn’t do, I got very upset and wanted to be done and leave. But I couldn’t... no one else in my family was or is like me. I care way too much and couldn’t leave her even if I had somewhere else to go. My grandma was someone who... to put it nicely, didn’t get along well with everyone. She used to be an addict and when she would drink or pop pills she became very mean and confrontational and she would fight anyone in her way. She and my mom (her daughter) never really got along until a few years ago when she got sober. Even then didn’t really get along that well.

So being me, I wasn’t able to just leave her alone. Don’t get me wrong, our family friend lived and still lives with us, and she probably would have looked after her but there was no way they would’ve been able to keep up on bills.

Even though I was mad and hurt by the things my grandmother said to me and accused me of, I stuck it out let the anger and hurt pass and took care of her. I’m glad I did because little did we know she died a few months later.

One morning my boyfriend and I got up and we got dressed so we could run to the pharmacy and pick up my grandma's medications. I opened my bedroom door to take my dogs down before we left and I look across my hallway and there she is... on the floor of her bedroom. At first I thought nothing of it until I got closer to her door and noticed she wasn’t yelling at the dogs to stop nudging her with their paws. As I got closer I start getting louder and louder saying, “Grandma... Grandma... GRANDMA this isn’t funny.”

Then I saw her face started screaming for my boyfriend to call 911, and without even realizing it I was already dialing 911, rushing down the stairs to put my dogs outback. Being in shock or whatever it was I was in, I could not for the life of me, understand what the dispatch was saying to me. So I handed my boyfriend my phone, grabbed his and called my mom and was trying to tell her what was going on . It all happened so quickly. My adrenaline was running so much I didn’t feel any of my hip pain and was flying up and down the stairs. My boyfriend was instructed to do chest compressions until the first officer arrived, which was incredibly quick. My boyfriend told me to unlock the front door so I opened it so the EMT and police officers knew where to go. As I opened the door the first responder was running up to my door and then he ran up the stairs and took over the chest compressions.

When the EMTs arrived they took over and ended up doing compressions for about 45 minutes before they declared her deceased. During the 45 minutes of compressions, there was two times I thought I heard my grandma tell them, ”I’m okay, I’m just cold,” so I got so happy and excited I looked at the police officers that were downstairs with me and said, “Is that her? Is she talking right now? She’s okay?!” And they slowly looked at me and shook their head no. This entire time I was shaking and in shock I didn’t know what to do, so I paced to the front door and back into the kitchen waiting for my mom to arrive. Finally my mom and one of my sisters show up and then a few minutes later we were told my grandma didn’t make it. We lost it and all cried.

In the same day we had to call a coroner to come and pick her body up and they ended up not coming so my poor grandma laid on the floor all day long. Being traumatized, I couldn’t walk up the stairs, since her room was the one right at the top, I couldn’t walk past her door with the door open and I’ve slightly panicked going past it with the door closed because my mind played tricks on me. I always imagined when I walked past that she was still in there on the floor just how I found her. But logically I knew she wasn’t.

I had nightmares for about a week of my grandma being mad at me and of her crawling to me and everything. Even though the paramedics told us we got to her right when it happened, there was no saving her. I still felt and feel I let her down. I still feel like if we were just a few minutes sooner she’d still be here but she wouldn’t. They said it wouldn’t have made a difference because she had a heart attack and died before she even hit the ground.

Four months later on New Year’s Eve, I’m still struggling with the loss of my grandmother and the fact we celebrated her birthday, Christmas, thanksgiving and now New Years without her. It’s been a rough four years and an even rougher four months. I hope no one else ever has to go through so much struggle at this young in life. I’m just so thankful I stayed and was here for my grandma's last few months.

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About the Creator

Jes ♥️

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