My Grandmother Needs To Die

Grandmother

I love my grandmother. I wouldn’t be her caretaker if I didn’t. But this week has been particular taxing for me culminating in today.

My grandmother has chronic pain. Mindnumbing I-wish-I-were-dead sort of pain in her legs and lower back. This week the pain has gotten so bad she hasn’t been able to walk (hobble is probably the more adequate verb to use to describe how my grandmother is ambulatory.) To move around she has taken to sitting on the ground and using her arms and ass to propel forwards.

Today she can’t even move without screaming in agony. Even the smallest movement brings with it hell on earth for her. I hear her crying in Korean, “ican’tlivelikethis.godpleasetakeme.thisistoomuch.”

The problem is that mentally she is still sharp. Her body is what’s let her down, and at 86 it’s completely betraying her. Nothing can be done to help her, not surgery not drugs not anything. Nothing. This is her life.

And here I am, helpless to do anything. Nothing I say or do will take the pain away for her. Nothing I do will make her wake up magically able to do the things she was able to do ten years ago. Nothing. I am useless except for moral support for whatever good that does (to prolong her suffering?)

For the first time, I broke down. Here I am in my bedroom writing this tears in my eyes just completely spent. I know I can’t be emotional in front of my grandmother, that I can’t make her feel any worse than she already feels. But it’s tough. It’s really really tough.

I’m taking her to her primary care physician just after lunch, and we’re going to take it from there. I know the logical steps to take to try and help her, but I know it will be useless.

I don’t know what to do.

So for her sake I hope she goes soon just so she doesn’t have to endure this pain she goes through 24/7. And selfishly I hope she goes so that I don’t have to witness someone I love dearly die in front of me in the slowest, most excruciating way possible.