when she arrived at the hospital the doctors explained that she was too old and frail to undergo a balloon angioplasty and that the risk wasn't worth it. the woman took the doctor by his labcoat lapel and told him that she had her faculties and that she wasn't ready to die and that she wanted her heart fixed.

the woman's mitro valve is stuck open. sort of the equivalent of the throttle stuck open on a carbureted engine.

she was intebated and not breathing on her own friday night and the doctors said that without the breathing tube she would not breathe on her own.

the family decided that at 93 years old she would perhaps want the dignity to die on her own terms and not fade away on a respirator, so they signed the papers to let them remove the tube, which was obviously pissing my great-grandmother off.

they took it out and the first thing she said when the mild dose of morphine wore off (when everyone expected her to stop breathing and slowly die) was that she was hungry and wanted some breakfast.

the doctors say that she probably will not last another three days. these are the same people that said that there was no hope once she was off of the respirator. so i don't really know what to think.

i don't really want to remember her all sickly and surrounded by crying family, but i feel shitty if i don't go and she dies. (i have issues with death and i hate facing it and therefore i hate hospitals, especially having spent a good chunk of my childhood in them with my mother while she was working. i have stories. catch me sometime and ask me about what gunshot wound victims look like up close to a six-year-old.)

i would rather remember her the way i saw her last week-- yelling at her bulldog to stop slobbering on her slippers.

if i can be half as strong as her at half her age i'll be doing ok.