Grandma

The past week or so has seen some ups and downs. My baby shower was held last Sunday (May 20). It was nice to see all of the people who came to celebrate my pregnancy and the upcoming birth of our first child. I enjoyed myself, and I think that those who attended did as well. Unfortunately, my maternal grandmother, who has been having health issues lately, also had a heart attack that day. Today, J.R. and I went to visit her. Although she described herself as feeling rather "peppy" compared to how she was feeling a few days ago, I believe that she looked the weakest that I have ever seen my grandmother look. J.R., whose grandmother went through somewhat similar issues before she died, said that the whole situation had an eerie resemblance to what he remembers of his grandmother. We had a nice visit with Grandma, who was happy to see us; she carried on a very lively conversation with us (and everyone else who came into her room). To see Grandma's faith shining at this time is quite inspiring - I hope that if I am ever faced with sufferings such as she is facing, I would cling as closely to God and be able to "offer it up" with the same patience, understanding, and something akin to happiness that I saw in her. J.R. and I left the hospital feeling hopeful, and glad that we had gone to visit Grandma. Things took another turn for the worse this evening, when the doctors discovered that the stint that was put in about a week ago to help with a blockage in Grandma's heart was closing. Thankfully, the doctor was able to put another stint in and patch a vein that was leaking without doing open heart surgery. Hopefully this will be the last surgery that she will need, since the main problem of this week was that she was losing blood from an unknown area (thus the patch) and needed to be given several pints of blood to keep her hemoglobin up. Please keep my grandmother in your thoughts and prayers at this time, my family and I would appreciate it very much.