Carpeteria – Day Four

(See also Day One and Days Two & Three)

We rose on Sunday morning eager to hit the beach before packing it in and heading home.  Ang and Lucila went for a “10 minute walk” (we saw them an hour later). I started in on my breakfast, and Grandma asked me for an aspirin – she wasn’t feeling well.

Relaxing in the morning sun and enjoying my old fashioned donut, I was quickly snapped to attention by Meg – Sophie needed a diaper change…  I proceeded to do the needful.

Suddenly, I heard my Mom call over to me for help.  I looked over and saw her panicked; Grandma was slumped over on the picnic table, seemingly unconscious.  Meg took Sophie as I ran over to determine what was going on.  Was she choking?  Had she passed out?  As I picked her up, I noticed her body was rigid, and her hands clutched the checkered table cloth.  Her jaw looked clenched and her eyes glassy – was she having a stroke? A heart attack?  No sooner had we laid her on the ground, did she sit back up and assure us everything was fine.  What ever had happened, she had snapped out of it.

While all of this was going on, a ranger happened to drive by.  She asked Meg if we needed help, and proceeded to radio for paramedics. 

Grandma was not happy about this.  She didn’t want someone to check her vitals or, God forbid, make her go to a hospital.  My mom and I assured her that they were just going to check her quickly and let her go.  We’d still have a nice day at the beach.

We were wrong.

What we’d assumed was just a low blood-sugar episode turned out to be much more severe.  The paramedics assessed her symptoms (while confirming that her blood-sugar levels were normal) and diagnosed cardiac arrhythmia.  A hospital trip was in order, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.  The paramedics relayed her status to Uncle Pat (a firefighter) who was ultimately able to convince her.

Off they went in the ambulance.  I was sure she’d never for give us.

Mom followed the ambulance and Meg and I began to strike camp.  Although mom implored us to enjoy the day as if everything were normal, It didn’t seem right to relax at the beach with Grandma in the hospital.  Still, mom told us to proceed as normal until we heard from her.  Yeah, ok…

After packing up, we were pretty hungry though.  Ang and Lucila had finally returned and we filled them in on what had happened.  We decided to grab lunch at “The Spot” and wait for news from mom.  Truth be told, we decided to grab lunch to go, and bring it over to “Island Brewery” across the street.  If we were going to be waiting around, at least we could be sampling beer. (The inconsistency of drinking alcohol rather than lying on the beach while your grandma is in the hospital is not lost on me.)

The brewery was a neat joint, and friendly with kids and dogs to boot.  The patrons vary from sandaled beach-goers to Harley-Davidson mounted bikers.  Sophia was frightened by the latter – the bikes were simply too loud for her.  Truthfully, the motorcycles were nothing compared to the horn-blaring Amtrak train that passes by with uncomfortable closeness.  In her panic to be rescued from the “scary choo-choo monster,” a glass of beer was knocked off the table and shattered on the ground.  In other news, Meg sampled a beer against her better judgment.

As it happened, Grandma ended up be discharged a few hours later.  She had some infections that had gone untreated for a few weeks.  They led to dehydration, which subsequently caused the arrhythmia.  They gave her some antibiotics and told her to follow up with her regular doctor.

Mom and Grandma returned to the beach and got in a few more hours of sun.  The rest of us decided we need to get home and unpack before the work week began again.

It was an exciting day in all of the wrong ways.  We made the best of it and it worked out.

NOTE: Grandma’s doing much better.