Posted on Wed Jul 16, 09:39 PM in Livin'
I most resemble my grandmother of all family members… but I hope I don’t do this in my golden years.
While I was talking to my mom today, I found out my grandmother (my dad’s mother) was taken to the hospital recently. My grandmother is in her mid-80s and quite independent. She is smaller than me (4’9”, I think), but is fully capable, both mentally and physically, of taking care of herself, and in fact still lives at home and is able to take care of her yard. And she drives, bowls, golfs, and probably a million other things. So hearing she was in the hospital was alarming on several levels.
Turns out she has been on blood pressure medication (which no one knew about). On Sunday, she felt quite dizzy, and also had a bad bout of what she thought was stomach flu. After my aunt drove her to the ER, she not only was on an IV for dehydration, but she was also but on IV food for three hours. And, she didn’t notice it herself, but she was very very pale.
How did this happen? My grandmother apparently felt that if she felt fine one day, she didn’t have to take her blood pressure medication. If she felt “off” on another day, she’d take it then. This made perfect sense to her, despite the fact that the bottle of pills instructs a daily dosage and her doctor told her this, too.
It’s difficult to explain, but my grandmother is not afflicted with memory loss of any kind. She’s sharp and remembers a LOT. You can engage her in any conversation you want, humorous or serious or political or historical, and she is right there with you. She takes care of everything in her life (except when my dad and my uncle yell at her for things like getting up on a ladder to clean her gutters). So it isn’t that she “forgot” to take medication. She simply thought she knew better than her doctor.
Reportedly, she realizes now that she made a huge mistake… Especially after a follow-up appointment (which my dad attended) in which her doctor ripped her a new one (in as much as you can do that kind of thing in a doctor-patient relationship) and told her she had “a wake-up call.” She agrees. Then both her sons proceeded to chastise her. I have faith she probably won’t do this again.
Perhaps this is one of those situations where older folk go kicking and screaming in to that good night of assisted living. For my grandmother, going on any kind of maintenance medication is a first, and she most likely views it as a weakness (literally, an assistance). I can almost sympathize. Almost.
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