Listen to your gut...

I've been preoccupied a lot lately, It's not that I don't love you all out in Kafooster land, it's just that there have been many demands on my time, and not even the holiday stuff, because barely any of that is done. Lately my biggest concern has been my grandmother.. Alice. She is now 86, and has all kinds of breathing problems, and was, frankly, tired, ready to die, and the family has been on pins and needles waiting for this EVENT.

This Friday I went to work as usual, and I started to cry, Grandma was in the hospital, and no one really knew what was wrong and I felt so disconnected. When my boss, Faith, saw me crying she said, Whoa! come over, tell me what's up!... I do not cry easily, and NEVER at work..

"Michelle, just go, you'll never feel right if you don't" Faith said..

And as it sometimes happens, everything just fell into place. John was able to have the time off of work, Faith arranged my days for this week so that I miss no work, I was able to get a flight out of Portland to Boise at 11:50 am PST on Friday morning (yep, same morning) and was in the hospital with Grandma by 3:30ish her time. (one hour ahead of us)

Now I'm not going to say that this was a pleasure cruise of a weekend, because, it was not. There were a lot of close calls, and we almost lost Grandma at least two times, but by the time I left on Monday morning, Grandma was tossing pillows at her bed, and getting cranky. (This made the family very, very happy!)

I spent a lot of time (almost all of this time I was there) at the Holy Rosary Hospital there in Ontario, Oregon. I know where the Chapel is, I know where the nurses keep the coffee on the 3rd floor, and the blankets and pillow cases for that matter... I was offered a job to join the night staff, only partial in jest I think. The staff was wonderful, but the time that I spent with my grandmother was a true blessing, for both of us. I was able to really understand her physical condition, and to translate that to family members if needed, and indeed to grandma herself. Although, she is the one that explained half of it to me. May I never stop learning from that amazing woman.

The point of all of this dribble is that, I was crawling out of my skin, unbalanced, ungrounded, feeling like I was flying apart, and when I stopped and listened to my gut, (and my boss, and my mom) everything just fell into place and both me and my family benefited from my trip to Eastern Oregon.

Grandma Alice is now out of the hospital, in rehab and starting her exercises for the first time today! She said that she is feeling great! She has a new lease, if you will.

See.. here she is with her Minnie mouse ears that my Aunt Linda and Cousin Jason just brought back to her. What a very loved mouse, uh, Grandma.