10.10.15

Meet Margaret

Hello everyone

Today's post is going to be very different from my usual rants.
I want to talk about my grandma, it is inspired by Sprinkle of glitter's video


We've had a lot of troubles with our family for many years, I won't go into detail but I just wanted to introduce you to the one family member I really looked up to.
I don't know exactly why I looked up to her,but oh well.

She was Miss Scotland around 1956 (although my Google search turned up empty) and a tap dancer. She would dress up and put make up on just to run to the shops,she was really funny and liked to make an effort with everything.

My dad moved her out to our island so we could take care of her and have her close. She hated him for that,she lived in Tenerife for so long and absolutely adored it..along with all her cats.

Yes,my grandma was a crazy cat lady and she hated if my brother or I called her grandma because she said it made her sound old. 
She refused to grow old.

Anyway,our house has stairs and we didn't think it was a good idea making an old lady go up and down stairs all day.
We managed to get her an apartment right next to our house,without stairs.
It was ideal because it meant we could check up on her and give her the privacy she wanted when she wanted it.

We also did her shopping for her,to save her the trouble of walking all the way to the shops and back.
She loved her alcohol though,to a point where we would buy her a bottle of wine and it would only last her a day.
On a day that I was doing the shopping, I completely forgot to get her her wine.
She said it was fine,she'd just pop round the corner and grab something to drink.

I did think about going with her but I figured she wouldn't want me looking over her shoulder or annoying her.
In the end I thought she's an adult, I should give her some space.Let her have some fun.
Boy was I wrong, I still blame myself for this... 

She fell down a tiny tiny step, my dad had asked me where she was and walked into the bar to find his mum on the floor in pain and a waiter bringing her a bottle of champagne.

Called an ambulance, rushed her to the hospital,she'd broken her hip.
They operated on her and told us she needed to rest.

Doctors didn't tell us until the end but it was very obvious she had altzeimers, she'd ask about her parents,wanted to get up and clean.
My dad would get frustrated with her because he thought she was just messing around, he would try and remind her that her parents were long gone, that she'd had an operation and wasn't allowed to get up and do things.
He bought her a zimerframe because we thought she was on the road to recovery, she still wasn't eating and she was very weak but she was able to move around.
She fell and opened her stitches.
Back at the hospital again, we were all so worn out my dad decided to put her in a home where she would get proper care.
So we arranged that to be done.

She still didn't eat,she had another accident while she was in the care home, and ended back in hospital.

Because she wouldn't eat she got very sick,she had to be fed through a tube and once again strapped to the bed.
She was very scared, obviously, she had been strapped down by strangers onto a bed and they were feeding her through a tube.

We visited her in the hospital everyday and everyday she hated us for putting her there, she thought I was some sort of social worker sometimes, other times she didn't recognise us at all.

She passed away, the call was in Spanish,because we live in Spain the hospital staff don't really try that hard to learn another language.

The hospital called my dad, he handed me the phone and started gathering his things because he was expecting them to release her,her health was getting better and we were ready to move her back into a home.

''Sorry to say this but your grandma passed away today,we need you to come to the hospital with her passport and all her ID papers''

She died thinking I was a social worker.




I've set up a Just giving page for her and all alzeimers patients and I'm taking part in the Children's Society's Blogger Bake-Off Challenge to raise money for the charity.

I'll be doing baking blog posts up until December, you can donate if you want.

I don't expect to raise any money I just wanted to tell you about my grandma and how great she was. 

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