You Never Know When Sickness Will Strike

One of the many unfortunate curve balls life will throw at you is sickness and, unfortunately, you never know when it’s coming. A little over a year ago, my grandfather suddenly fell ill. He had what we all thought was just a cold and a fever for about a week until we finally decided that he needed to be taken to the hospital. The ambulance rushed to our house and carried him out on a stretcher (which he didn’t like, I might add).

It was as if a switch had been flipped and things took a turn for the worst. A code-blue situation occurred and my grandfather had to be intubated immediately. They sedated him and began running all kinds of tests to figure out what was causing his body to fail like this. After the results came back, they diagnosed him with pneumonia.

It wasn’t until nearly a year later that my grandpa returned home — he suffered through weeks of sedation, intubation, surgery, rehabilitation, along with other painstaking treatments. He wasn’t around to celebrate the holidays with us. The day we finally saw him sitting on his rocking chair (which he’s dubbed as his “throne”) at home again, we all promised ourselves and him that he would never have to go through that sickness again.

So you could imagine our surprise and heartbreak when, just a week ago, my grandpa got sick again. Everyone tried to remain calm but still alert — we didn’t want a repeat of last year’s incident where he remained ill at home for a week before finally being hospitalized. This time, we noticed the signs right away -- he was getting a fever and was having trouble breathing. Wasting no time, we called the ambulance and had them take him to the hospital. Again, he was diagnosed with pneumonia in his right lung and, after only a day of being hospitalized, was intubated, put on a ventilator and sedated.

It was as if we were all reliving a terrible nightmare. Everyone was in shock that this terrible thing was happening again. My grandpa isn’t one to sit around in the house all day in his bed — he is an incredibly active man (with a pretty strong mouth on him, too). At any given time, you’re likely to find him either in his garden, driving around or over at one of his friends’ houses. So seeing him silently laying in a hospital bed with a machine breathing for him is just mind-boggling and, above all, heartbreaking.

Nothing is sadder than seeing someone you love endure pain and discomfort. This time, though, my grandpa has (thankfully) not had to suffer nearly as much as he did a year ago. He spent only a few days in the ICU before he was recently moved to the respiratory ward where his breathing is being monitored. He quickly passed his speech and swallow test which allowed him to be taken off of his feeding tube (that he wasn’t a huge fan of). Now, he’s up and talking, and seems to be back to his normal self. We couldn’t be more thankful for his speedy recovery; if all goes well, then he should be back at home and on his “throne” before we know it.