Friday August 13th...
There are certain dates and times in a person’s life that just never fade away and are recalled with exact detail. One week prior to 08/13/04 we were celebrating the birth of our new baby girl that ya’ll know from the daily dose as Blondie. The celebration was being over shadowed by what would take place on Friday the 13th of August in 2004.
At 9:33 PM on August 13,2004 Blondie’s grandmother and Mrs. Papper’s mother passed away after some serious complications from blood clots that were in her legs and had moved into her lungs. She had been hospitalized for about 10 days and so while we had a new baby to celebrate, we also had a death staring us in the face at the same time.
Ehlers--Danlos...
We would later come to find out that “Mammaw”, as she was called, had been the first of the wife’s side of the family to have a disease that is known as Ehlers Danlos syndrome. There are several variations of EDS, one of which has to do with the vascular system of the body. One thing that doctors have come to realize that wasn’t known at the time was that for some reason a lot of medicines that EDS patients will end up taking have exactly the opposite effect as those medicines would have on people without EDS.
Medicine doesn't work like normal...
This would be the exact case with Mammaw, the blood thinners that she was being given actually were causing blood clots throughout her body, sounds crazy but it is what happened. Mammaw was in her early seventies and another abnormality she had was her heart was backwards in her chest, her cardiologist said he had only seen that condition in one other patient besides her, so I’m thinking that is a pretty rare occurrence. Since she was in her seventies, and not in the best health to begin with there wasn’t any heroic last ditch experimental stuff that would be tried or even asked to be tried. She had led a pretty full life and it was her time to pass on to the other side.
It was time...
The decision to move her from the hospital back to her home was made the evening before, so a hospital bed and hospice could be arranged before she was moved back home. Everything was in place by 10:00 AM that Friday morning and the ambulance took her from the hospital back to her place in the country. By 11:30 that morning she was resting at home, heavily sedated and unconscious. She did have a peaceful look about her, but who knows what was really going on in her mind if anything. The hours dragged on but at 9:33 PM she took her last breath, and by midnight her body was on the way to the funeral home. The sheriff had to come “investigate” the death.
Credit is due...
I have to give it to my wife, despite having just giving birth a week earlier and the emotions of that experience she was the only blood relative of Mammaw that actually could hold herself together. When it came time to make the arrangements with the funeral home she had to do it all, it was just to “stressful” for her older sister and brother to deal with and her father was a total wreck as well.
My wife’s father never dreamed he would outlive Mammaw and he had spent the last fifty plus years of his life with her waiting on him hand and foot so he really was in a state of shock.
Early morning coffee...
A lot of men don’t really care much for their “mother in laws” but I have to say that Mammaw and I got along pretty well for the most part. She always was an early riser and so a lot of times I would stop by early for a cup of coffee in the mornings and just visit with her. She was always up to speed with what was taking place in the community so I was able to stay well informed.
Short changed for sure...
I wish that she had been with us longer so she could have met Blondie and then Shortie. Mammaw did a real good job of spoiling her other grand kids and that is something that our girls never got to experience, the boys got a little taste of it, but neither of the girls did.
It is a genetic thing...
There has been a lot more research done in the Ehlers- Danlos Syndrome but it is still relatively unknown to most people and even some doctors. I might say that we have our hands full with it since the wife, the two girls, and the youngest boy all have the EDS. We also see signs of it in some of the nieces and nephews and their parent, but not to the severity that my kids and wife have so, “it is all in our heads” according to them. Someday I need to do a daily dose just on EDS, I need to make a note of that.
So here we are...
So each August 13th is a sad day around here as we remember the Mammaw and try and pass on some of the good memories of her to the girls. I thank you for reading this daily dose, this one is surely intended for my “future” readers and so it needed to have its place in the block chain.
Have a great day and enjoy the last of summer before school starts.
Until next time,
