Request for Prayer

Yesterday, although starting out well, turned out to be a rough day by the end.  Early afternoon I received a phone call that my grandfather fell and was rushed to the hospital because he was really pale and his blood pressure was super low.  By super low blood pressure, I mean 80 over 35 or some ridiculously low number like that.  It didn't seem to serious because they got him to the hospital fairly quickly and were able to start figuring things out.  It turned out he had minor internal bleeding in his stomach, most likely due to ulcers in the past and some Advil that he had taken the week before for back pain.  The doctors determined that he needed a transfusion to raise his overall blood count and get him back to normal.  After I received the phone call telling me what happened, I finished up work and headed down to be with my grandmother who is blind and can't do much of anything on her own.  When I got there, she was sitting by herself, gripping the phone tightly in her hands, and staring blankly at a wall.  The only sound emanating from her room was the constant tick of a food timer which she religiously reset to 60 minutes every time it rang so she could tell when an hour had passed.  Her whole demeanor improved when I got there and we just started talking about life, but mostly about my son whom she wanted to know every last detail about.  The last time she was with us was around Christmas and she needed to know how he was, what he looked like, and how he was developing.  We talked and talked and talked. 

Then came the news that my grandfather had been rushed to the ICU.  In the midst of telling my mother, who was at his bedside the whole time, about the grocery's that he needed from the store, he started to have trouble breathing and took an immediate turn for the worse.  He had been recovering, but something flipped and he needed help quickly.  It turned out that his lungs had started to fill with fluid and from what I was told, it looked like congestive heart failure.  At first I didn't tell my grandmother about what was happening because she didn't need the extra burden of disheartening news.  When I got a call from the doctor at the hospital however asking for specific medical history about my grandfather, she knew something was up and I couldn't hold out on the news any longer.  Needless to say, she broke down, shaking and crying, moaning and praying for God to be with her husband.  It wasn't easy for me either.  I could do nothing for her but pray with her, hold her, and try to console her the best I could.  For the first time ever, she laid her head on my chest and cried her heart out, the unknown perhaps being her biggest fear.  She gripped my arms tightly, and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.  All I could do was hold her.  It was a couple of hours before we received any more news from the hospital, but those were some of the longest hours we spent together.  I did manage after a while to get my grandmother to calm down some, tried to take her mind away from her husband who she couldn't be with and could do nothing to help at the time. 

Luckily, the doctors were able to stabilize my grandfather and in a combination of medication and intubation (tube down the through on a respirator), the fluid started draining from his lungs and he became alert enough where he could have people visit him briefly.  When I found that out, it was a big relief, at least knowing his condition and that he was stable.  My mother then came from the hospital to be with my grandmother and I left immediately to go see him.  When I got there, he still didn't look that good, but I could tell he still had some fight left in him.  He knew who I was, responded to questions with nods of the head and a super tight grip from his hands.  He tried giving me a hug, but having tubes running down his throat and looking quite like a pin cushion with all the needles sticking out of him, I instead bent down, ran my hands through his hair and kissed his forehead.  I stayed long enough to let him know that his wife wanted to be with him and that she and my dad wanted me to give him a kiss.  I gave him plenty and told him that he better get out of there soon so he could see his great grandson.  With him stabilized, we can only hope that he will fully recover from whatever hit him like a ton of bricks, but we just don't know right now.  There has been no breaking news since last night and we can only hope and pray at this point.  So in an effort to help him along, wherever he needs to go at this point, I am asking for prayers from whoever reads this.  I don't care what kind of prayers they are, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or anything else, any type of prayer is welcome.  And if you can, although I normally don't specifically request this, please pass this along.  All I ask for is that he doesn't suffer and feels as little pain as possible.  He is a tough Polish cookie and still has fight left in him, but he is 87 and at his age anything can happen.  In advance I thank you for your prayers.