On a nice day in July 2006, my mother and I were making pickles. We were in the middle of finishing up when we got a phone call from my grandma.

I am just not feeling well. Maybe I should call someone to take me to ER. I think I am going to call Kevin and Lori, and then I will call Lisa to tell her what is going on.

I picked up the phone and started joking around with her. She normally calls for random things, so I thought this was no different.

“Hello?” I said.

“Can I talk to your mom?” she asked.

“Who is this?” I asked her, jokingly.

“Let me talk to your mom,” she demanded.

“Uh, ok?” I handed the phone to my mom.

“Lisa, I think there’s something wrong with my brain. I’m just not feeling right,” I explained.

“Do you think it might be a stroke?” she asked me.

“It could be. Kevin and Lori are taking me to ER.”

“Okay, me and Syd will be up there as soon as we can,” she replied.
“What’s going on?” I asked mom because the look on her face told me someth6ing was wrong. She then explained to me what grandma had told her over the phone. We started to put the canning stuff away. Mom called Dad to fill him in on what was going on. He told her that he would meet us there. When she got off the phone, we headed out the door and made our way to Bluffton, where my grandma was in the ER.

“Carolyn, we’re going to take you for a CT scan,” the nurse informed me before having me get the wheelchair. As the nurse was wheeling me down to the room, I was trying to think what it could possibly be. We get to the room, she helps me onto the cold, hard, CT Scanner bed. I lie there, and listen to the beeps until it is finally over.

“Ok, we’re all done. It will take a few minutes to get the results, so I’ll take you back to the ER.”

When I get back to the room, I ended up listening to my family talk and waiting for the nurse or doctor to get back. My nurse came in after awhile and told me that she was going to put some IVP Dye in.

“Why?”

“The doctor hasn’t been in yet, has he?”

“No,” I told her, confused.

The nurse quickly walked out of the room to get the doctor. He came back to tell me that he had found something. He started naming off multiple things it could be, but he was pretty sure it was a fast growing tumor.

“I want to send you to Lutheran to get an MRI,” the doctor said.

“They want to send me to Lutheran? Tonight?”

The doctor walked out of the room to get the paperwork and to have the nurses call Lutheran. While we were waiting on the nurse, Grandma changed out of her gown and back into her regular clothes. The nurse brought back the papers for Grandma to sign. After Grandma was all done singing, we headed out to the car. We drove to her house to get her belongings, just in case she had to spend the night.

After getting to Lutheran, we signed in, and did some more waiting. They came and told us that they were going to admit her and take an MRI.

I was lying in my bed when the nurse came in and told me that I would not have my MRI tonight.

“All the technicians left,” she said.

I ended up having the MRI the next day. They clarified it was a fast growing tumor and needed to get out of there.

A few days later, they let me grandma out of the hospital. She was scheduled to have surgery the next week.

We picked her up for her surgery. We got to the hospital fairly early to have time to sign in.

I sat there waiting for my pre-surgery blood tests. They obviously turned out okay because they took me back for surgery not too long afterwards. The anesthesiologist put the IV in to me to sleep.

As my grandma was in surgery, we waited and worried for about three hours. They doctor came out and told us that the surgery went great, and they were taking her to the Recovery Room. She was there for a week.

The doctor told us when she got out, she could not drive for a week, and someone would have to stay with her for two. She recovered great and still is today.