Grandma Bagley

A few weeks ago my grandma Bagley got sick again. She has been so healthy lately. Mom and Debbie took her to the Emergency Room one evening and they admitted her. For some reason her heart was in A-fib and her heart rate was way too high. She had a fever and they suspected possibly pneumonia and a kidney infection. They put her on IV antibiotics but still for days her heart rate remained in the 13o's. Way too high. After about 3 days of antibiotics her heart rate slowed down to a normal rate. She began to feel better and had talked the doctor into letting her go to my mom's house rather than the nursing home for a few days of rehab until she was ready to go back home. I stopped in to her room the morning she was to be discharged as I was leaving work. She was laughing and joking with me and the nurse and seemed close to her normal self. I kissed her goodbye and went to Smiths with my mom and dad. While we were shopping my aunt Jean called from the hospital and said that grandma had had a stroke while she was showering. Mom and dad rushed to the hospital but I stayed home with my kids. I was exhausted from working all night and very worried about my grandma. She was just fine! I had seen her just a couple hours before and she was fine! I sat home and cried all day.

Finally, when Bryan got home I went to the hospital. Oh my goodness, it was so hard to see her that way. She had slept most of the day but awoke just before I got there as the neurologist was examining her. According to him and the MRI, she had 3 small clots that came from her heart. He said they really hadn't done much damage but they affected her optic nerve. He was confident that she would recover quite well physically, but she may be blind in her right eye and that she would have difficulty moving her eyes.

That evening she just lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. She didn't try to talk or move and her eyes weren't lined up. Oh my gosh. I thought I had cried all I could cry but it was soooo difficult to see her like this. It just broke my heart. We would talk to her and she would either blink or sort of half smile in response but that was it.


The next day my parents and I went to the hospital to visit her. As we walked down the hall to her room, I saw her sitting in the chair next to the bed and she saw me and smiled!!! I was so excited! She had walked down the hall and was sitting and starting to talk a little, although her speech was a little slurred. Her eyes were lined up and she said she didn't see double and could move them all around. What a relief!! She had no recollection of the previous day's event but today was a huge improvement!!

Unfortunately the doctor insisted that she go to the nursing home for rehab before she returned home. Even though she hates that place, he said she would only have to stay for 2-3 weeks just until she was strong enough to go home.

She has been at the nursing home for a week now. She works very hard in physical therapy because she wants to make sure she gets to leave that place! Every day she seems a little more like herself. It is so nice to see her making a recovery from all of this. I was so worried about her. My grandma has lived 86 wonderful years and although she is anxious to be with my grandpa again, it is obvious that Heavenly Father is not ready for her to return just quite yet. I feel so blessed to have her here, and I am thankful for each day that we have to spend with her.