I haven't done this in awhile...

I haven't posted anything in awhile...a long while, actually.

As you can probably guess, a lot has happened since January when I posted last:

My wonderful boyfriend proposed to me on February 13. I had a feeling it was coming. Anyone who knows him knows that he is a horrible liar and usually has a hard time covering up his tracks if he is trying to get away with something. I mean....I can hear it in his voice when we are speaking on the phone as to whether or not he is lying to me....poor guy.

I finally have my (working) Escape. That happened at the end of February. I LOVE IT. Sadie treats me well and she only has 8,000 miles on it. When I initially got it from the dealership, she only had 6 miles on it. WHEW!

I went to FL in March with my fiance to visit my Grandma. My Grandma had the condo that we visited on Marco Island for 23 years. Prior to that one, her and my Grandpa had a condo down the beach since my mom was a kid. So it's been in the family for a looooong time. I have many amazing memories there from all my many trips of visiting her. The weather wasn't the best while Billy and I were there, but it was still great to get away from our schooling, work, and I got to spend time with Grammy :)

Billy (tried) to throw me a surprise golden birthday party when we got back from FL. But as I mentioned before, he is horrible at covering up his tracks and lying to me so when I found the guest list on MY computer (he wasn't even using his own to do this) he didn't even try to come up with a lie as to what the list was for...he just ran away from me. haha.

Lets see....nothing too exciting happened between April and the first part of August. But at the end of August, I completed my master's. Now...I have a bunch of free time and I don't know what to do with myself. Maybe I'll blog more...

Unfortunately, the same day I completed my master's program, my Grandma had a fall up at our family cottage. She got startled by a bat and tried to run away from it. She fell and fractured her pelvis, and shattered her shoulder and elbow. Keep in mind, this was in the middle of the day, so the fact that the bat was out and not sleeping is very strange... That was August 27th.

On August 28th, my mom, sister, and I went on a road trip out west. We tried to have the best time we could despite how worried sick we all were about our Grams. We spent time in Yellowstone National Park, The Grand Teton National Park, and we saw Mount Rushmore. I was taken aback the entire trip of the beauty that is out there. If you haven't already, check out the pictures on Facebook.

We got back from our trip on September 5. We got into Green Bay at 1am and we went straight to the nursing home to visit Grandma. Mom cried the whole drive from South Dakota to GB that day. I'm still not sure why and what was being said from her sister and brother that made her so upset, but I just know that she felt that she had to see her mom right away. When we got to the nursing home, Grandma was awake and was taking some pain meds from the PM nurse while watching TV. Grandma looked SO happy to see us.

From that day on until the end of September, I visited Grandma almost every single day. I think out of the entire month of September, I missed just 4 or 5 days of visiting her. I still can't drive past that nursing home without getting a stomach ache. It's on one of my routes from work back home, and I still avoid it. I just can't do it.

Anyone who knows my Grams, knows that she is a very very strong, independent, opinionated, and stubborn woman. My mom tells me everyday that I remind her of Grams and that she should have named me Betty. My Grandma HATED being in that nursing home. She was miserable. She hated waiting on people to help her, she hated depending on others just to get up and go to the bathroom, and she hated being alone when we couldn't come visit her.

Towards the end of September, the doctors had her on so much pain medication that she became delusional. She didn't think she was at the nursing home and she would ask me things like "would you put that in the kitchen for me" and "I like those yellow shoes you have".

And she was in so. much. pain. SO much pain. Two days before she passed away, I was visiting her and the nurses came in to help her go to the restroom. Grandma asked me to stay in the room with her. This was a rare moment of clarity when she asked me to do that. Otherwise, she was totally out of it. She was being helped by the nurses and she started screaming "HELP ME! HELP ME!". I looked over to Grandma and she looked so confused. I told her that she had to let these ladies help her and that she could go back to bed soon. After a few hours of visiting her that day, I kissed her goodbye and told her I loved her not knowing that two days later, she'd be gone.

On Tuesday, September 29, I got a call from my mom while I was at work informing me that at 4am, Grandma tried getting out of bed to go to the bathroom by herself and fell. The nurses found her on the floor, unresponsive, and they rushed her to the ER. I could tell in my mom's voice, as she was holding back tears, that I had better get to the hospital ASAP. I told her I would be there right away and she started crying. I knew this wasn't going to be a good day.

I got to Bellin at 11am and I walked into the room and saw my Grandma was unconscious, but in a seizure like state. The doctors gave her seizure meds to help her remain calm. I don't know if Grandma knew I was there or not, but I whispered in her ear that I loved her and kissed her. I kissed her so much. I held her hand and kissed it. I kissed her forehead. I kissed her cheeks. She passed away while I held her hand at 4:20pm. She had become septic. Which is an infection that gets into a blood stream and she could not fight it. I feel like she went so fast. She fell on Aug 27 and passed away Sept 29th. I feel like she was here, and then gone, in a blink of my eye.

I cried so hard for days and I still cry hard now. I miss her so much.