Burl Joe Macon
March 22, 1926 - April 7, 2007

You will be forever in my heart.

In tears we saw you sinking
and watched you fade away.
Our hearts were really breaking,
but we could not help you stay.
God watched us as you suffered;
he knew you'd had your share.
He tenderly closed your weary eyes
and took you in his care.
But when we saw you sleeping
peacefully free from pain,
We could not wish you back
to suffer that again.
Our hearts still ache with sadness,
and the secret tears still flow.
What it meant to lose you
only God will know.
To the place of rest we wander
where we say a little prayer.
No one knows the heartache
as we turn to leave you there.

Ok, so a lot has happened with Papaw since my last post. He didn't end up having the triple bybass. They knew that his heart was too weak and it that it would be too big of a risk. Instead, they put stints in the arteries in his heart. While he was on the operating table, he had another massive heart attack, and had to be revived. After reviving him, they finished the surgery and he was relatively stable. He was then taken to the ICCU (Intensive Care Cardiac Unit or something like that) where he was to stay under supervision of his own nurse at all times. He was supposed to be getting better so that they could eventually take him off some of the machines he was on and would eventually get to move to a regular room that has more visiting hours than 20 minutes every two hours. He seemed to be making some progress, so they took the tube out of his throat that was acting as his lungs (because his own lungs were too weak to do it on their own). There was trouble with that, so they had to do a tracheotomy. That's where they cut the hole in your throat so that you breathe through a tube that comes out of the hole (not fun).  He has not had anything to eat or drink for almost a month now, and it is very uncomfortable for him because his mouth is so dry. A few days after the tracheotomy, he had a stroke. He currently cannot move the left side of his body, and lost the muscles in his face. I went in during one of the visiting hours and had to hold back the tears because I didn't want him to see me cry. His brain is still completely functioning and he can write with his right hand, so that's how we communicate with him when we go in there. He has always been a jokester, and still makes jokes when he writes on his note pad. It is so horribly sad because I can see in his eyes that he wants to laugh and smile, but he can't. The brain connections aren't there. When I leave the room after visiting him, all I can do is cry my eyes out. This is all so sudden.

I just received word today that the doctor said that the first 10 days after his surgery he was improving, but since then, he has been gradually getting worse. They know now that he is not going to heal on his own. His heart is so weak that when they tried to turn him yesterday, his blood pressure dropped dangerously low, and they had to stop. Now, his kidneys are having problems, so they need to start dialysis. The problem with that is that dialysis decreases your blood pressure, which his is already dangerously low. The doctor said that we either have to do the dialysis which somehow is going to get the fluid out of his lungs, or we let him keep trying to heal on his own (which is not an option because it hasn't been working already).  If the dialysis works, the fluid will be out of his lungs which will somehow allow them to help his heart get better, but if his blood pressure drops too low during it, he will not make it. They are supposed to do the dialysis Tuesday or Wednesday, and I am terrified...

This is one of the worst experiences I've ever been through.

Please pray...that's all we can do at this point.

ok, so xanga has now become my place to vent about the world and how much life really really sucks right now. I realize that no one will read it, but that is preferred.

My grandfather had a heart attack last tuesday night. He is currently in the CCU (Cardiac Care Unit). He's over 80 years old, and is having a triple bypass tomorrow. I am so worried about him... I went down to Houston to see him last thursday and just came back yesterday. The hardest thing i have ever done was saying goodbye to him to come back to Dallas. He looked so helpless lying there in that hospital bed. I had never seen him like that prior to the trip down there. I love him so much, and don't know what i'll do if things don't work out... I've never lost anyone. God, please don't take my Papaw from me...

If you read this, please take a moment to pray for him. He will have a long recovery after the surgery...

My mom called earlier from the hospital (she is still down there).  She said she had a story to tell me, and i got scared. I thought she was going ot tell me something bad about my papaw, but it wasn't about him. She told me that as she was sleeping in the waiting room, someone had stolen her purse. That means her drivers liscense, credit cards, medication that she's on, over $400 in cash and many other things are gone. This really opens my eyes to how heartless people really can be. The ladies that my mom had befriended in the waiting room told her of their confrontations with a suspicious man in a red jump suit who smelled terribly (like he was homeless) when she woke up and her purse was gone. They told her of his horrible scent and of how he had been caught trying to steal their purses. My mom had seen him previously that night sleeping upright in a very uncomfortable chair. Being the nice woman that she is, she offered to drag over the chair that was next to hers because it folds out into a bed. Assuming that all the people in the room were going through the same thing with a relative in the CCU, my mother thought nothing of the man, so she securely tucked her purse between her and the wall, and tried to get some sleep. She woke up to find it and the man missing...

How does someone have the nerve to come into a hospital for christ's sake and steal people's purses?? The man didn't have a relative there, nor was he going through the horrible emotional trauma that my family and i'm sure many others are. After my mom was so kind to him, he still had the nerve to reach over her sleeping body and take her purse. She's lucky that he didn't do anything else or even kill her. If he told her that he needed some money, she would have gladly given him some, or taken him down to the cafeteria for some food. It makes me sad that this is what the world has come to...

School is going ok. I quit my job at steak and ale the other day, so that will give me more time to focus on it. I am doing pretty well in my classes, and i am sending off my application to UT tomorrow. That will be a HUGE load off of my shoulders. I really hope i get in there...i think it could help my spirits...

On that note, i am currently trying to figure out my place in the world. I have no idea where i'm supposed to be. I graduated a year early from high school so i could get out of the house, then i went to UMHB looking for a new start, and i didn't fit in there. That was definitely not where i was supposed to be. So now i live in dallas again with carly and lori, and it just doesn't feel right. I love my roommates, that's not the problem, but something is still missing. I feel like everyone else went off to college, stuck with their choice, and are having the time of their lives, I feel like everyone else isn't having to struggle with the same things i am. What's wrong with me? I can't seem to find my place at all. I find myself searching all the time for that one thing to fill the empty place in my life, but things keep getting worse...

Like I told sara today, I am waiting to hit rock bottom so that life can start getting better again...

Oh, xanga world. How's life?