It was not today, but Thursday over a week ago that I woke up in the morning and walked past my grandmother's room.

"Take me to the hospital.  I wanna go now, this way, " she said, asking to go in her robe and slippers.

Granny is normally a hospital avoidance expert, though these last few years have left her as a patient more than the rest of her life  combined.  I dutifully took her to the emergency room, telling my mom to ask her sister not to call while I was out there. 

"I'll be busy, so I can't answer the phone every few minutes.  Tell her I'll call her."

I was there about an hour when my mom's sister and brother-in-law showed up.  Granny has had trouble with blood clots, and her legs have been swollen for weeks.    The staff had moved us right away into a little room in the ER.  They finally got around to taking her up for a CT scan in order to check and make sure that the blood clots hadn't gotten to her lungs. 

My aunt and uncle and I waited. Finally, someone came down and said that my grandma's wristband was gone. 

"She's been sittin' up there in the hallway, and they didn't know who she was," the staff member said.  We waited longer.  Finally, an ER doctor came down.  Her lungs looked clear of clots as far as they could see, but the clots in her legs had worsened.  There were also "spots on her liver."  It would be cancer. It would have metastasized there from somewhere else, probably her colon, which sends blood to the liver.

Right now, they had to worry that a clot wouldn't break off and kill her.  They were going to put a filter in her abdomen to catch clots, then get to the spots later.

Cancer.  We went to a waiting room in a different section of the hospital as they put in the filter, and I kept weighing the word.  Everything seemed different, vaguely menacing in a way I couldn't grasp.  The air seemed charged and even the chirpily bland anchors we watched on the waiting room TV seemed part of a conspiracy.  What kind of word casts such a spell?

This Friday we got the official report back.  She has stage four cancer.  It probably started in the pancreas. Half her liver is eaten up with it.  Though some in the family (mostly men) didn't know what she should be told, I tried to prepare her.  I told her they were thinking that she probably had it.

"You tell 'em that no one in my family has cancer.  You tell 'em for me," she said.

Yesterday, we had a family meeting with an oncologist.  He looked about my age and stooped down to hold her hand, talking loudly as he told us all that chemotherapy usually only lengthens the life for a few months in an active patient with pancreatic cancer.  It is inadvisable for a person in her condition.

(They let Granny out of the hospital while they were waiting for the biopsy results, but I had to take her back to the emergency room last Wednesday. The bottoms of her feet were purple, because the clots were worsening and cutting off circulation.)

The oncologist even said that her feet might autoamputate.  He said they would only do chemotherapy if she insisted, but it would leave her feet open to even more wounds.  My already small, tired Granny seemed to shrink even more with worry as she squinted to understand him.

"Do you think you would want chemotherapy-like treatment, or do you want us to just make you comfortable?" he spoke slowly, loudly down to her.

"Yeah, I wanna be comfortable," she said.

I pointed out that she didn't know he was really asking if she wanted treatment at all or not.  She just thought he was asking about pain.  He tried to explain to her again.

So, they are going to release her to hospice care at home.  The doctor told the family that in her condition, he doesn't think it will be more than a month until she dies.  I don't know how much we will have to do at home.  I have to get the room ready.  Family members have flown in and another is coming.  I need to call to find a church for a memorial service.  I wonder what we will do about her bathroom needs, since she can't walk.  Her legs are purpling, too, and one foot  has a huge blister that leaked today and will probably turn into a wound.  Gangrene has been mentioned.  This is gross, I know, but I am not sure how this will be handled.  They claim that there is such good pain management.  The oncologist said that when cancer patients were surveyed, they feared pain more than death.  I don't doubt it.  It is what I fear.

As the family gathered in a waiting room last night to discuss the oncologist's visit-- saying they weren't sure what Granny understood and what she should be told--I decided to make my way back to her.  I asked if she knew what her doctor said.  I tried to tell her gently but clearly that they were saying she wouldn't live through this and that treatment wouldn't save her, but only make her legs more prone to wounds.

"Well, I'm 91.  That's a long time, honey," she said.  "You know I wanna be cremated."

"Yes," I said.

"And Susie said that you can just go up there at night and dig a hole and--you know--place the--and then plant a bush over it and them folks at Serene Gardens won't know," she said.  (She has said she wants the ashes buried, not just spread over the grave.)

"Yes," I said.  "You know, you'll see Bob" (my grandpa who died before I was born) "and who else....your parents and Pearl and Golden and---"

She began to name her siblings.  "and Jewell and Gervais....." (They named all the girls after gems except one. My grandma's middle name is Opal).

I mentioned the names of her deceased family members, because I hoped she'd find some comfort.  I know she has long been afraid of hospitals.  I know that she --a woman who never takes pain medicine--finally broke down crying a few days back from the pain in her legs, frantically asking somebody to help her.  I know that I still think of my own father and how I so wish to see him.  Sometimes it is hard to even stand.

But you never know where Granny's mind is.  After we named some of her lost family members, she finally admitted, "But I'm not a 'studyin' them right now.  I'm just hoping my bowels'll move."

Oh, the mad, screaming roller coaster of life.  Where will it take us next?