Quick update from Idaho

[fenchurch]

My grandmother continues to do better... and they've expanded the list of foods she can eat, which is making her VERY happy. I've seen some interesting things at mealtimes here in the past few days... my favorite was probably "Pureed Hot Roast Beef Sandwich." Yes, really. It actually didn't look too bad, and it smelled good enough to make me start feeling hungry -- imagine roast beef that's been ground incredibly fine, mixed in with gravy soaked, finely chopped bread (it looks about like stuffing, to be honest). Still, kinda weird. Although my grandmother had me hide the "pureed broccoli" in that meal from her view... and I couldn't blame her. It was about as far on the opposite end of the spectrum from appetizing as you could get.

She's been really fun to talk to and watch while she's been recovering. She's this sweet little old lady/former farm wife who is the queen of sarcastic facial expressions. Which you can imagine are getting a LOT of use in a hospital setting. Heh.

They moved her up to the rehabilitation floor today and she'll probably be there for another two weeks, so I'm heading home in the morning. I'm hoping to be able to do it in one fell swoop, but it's about a 13-14 hour drive and I'm not as stupid young as I used to be. I'll definitely stop if I get too tired.

I will be coming back here when she gets released from the hospital, whenever that turns out to be. I'm really hoping to have a week and a half or more at home before I have to come back (and I know this probably sounds horrible, but I also don't want to miss going to see Great Big Sea in October, if I can help it).

Comments

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah... I've actually been doing that for years. I got her to talk about how she started dating my grandpa and what she'd done after she relocated to Idaho from Arkansas (she was born on a reservation in Arizona, but her step-dad moved the family to his home state when she was 11).

Even better are the few times she's talked about her first husband, who is my dad's biological father. We know very little about him (he was quite a bit older than her and very abusive), but have been able to glean tidbits over the years. I still need to see what sort of info I can track down online nowadays... because we know he had at least two daughters from a previous marriage (my grandmother found that out after she married him... and also found out that he'd been in prison for attempting to murder his first wife after she gave birth to a second daughter. Yeah, he was a real charmer). My dad would really like to know what his father looked like... and I've always been curious about the two half-sisters.

[ayinhara.livejournal.com]

That was very clever of you to start collecting these stories. I need to start writing up the stories however fragmentary that I remember for my daughter, my niece and nephew.