Susan

Below was wrote by granddaughter Susan.

My Nanny was my best friend. She was everything to me. She knew all my secrets and my dreams. I would love to listen to my Nanny tell my stories about when she was a little girl and about her girls and about when I was little. One story I remember her telling me was when we lived in Cheyenne and I would go to her house every morning and she would make me breakfast. And one funny memory I remember was when we lived in Cheyenne and Me, Nanny, and Mom was coming back from town and Nanny had to pee real bad so she just pulled over and peed on the side of the road. The first time I realized that my Nanny had a liver disease and needed a liver transplant was when I was about 7 years old. I would try and listen to my Mom and Nanny talk about it. Then I remember all the trips to the doctors. I used to love going with my grandparents when my Nanny had an appointment at the doctor in OKC, we would always stop and eat at Ponchos, then sometimes when I could talk my Nanny and Pa into it, we would stop at Crossroads mall and go to Dillards. I remember that I would always get nrevous when Nanny would talk to people about her health getting worst, I would always leave the kitchen and go in the living room and watch t.v. On December 26, 1996, Nanny's birthday, me, my Mom, my brothers and sisters, my grandpa, my aunt Patti, and her husband and daughter Danielle, were all at my grandparents, it was later that night after everyone else had left. I remember walking into the kitchen and my Nanny had a towel in her hand with blood all over it. We called the ambulance and all my aunts, uncles, and cousins came to the hospital. My Nanny was in ICU that night while Kristi and Misty stayed with her, the next day they shipped her to OKC Integris Baptist Hospital. I remember going to the hospital, I was 13 at the time, and I was scared to death. I stayed at the hospital with my Nanny until she came home. I remember her getting me to go to the snack machines and sneaking her a sandwich up to her room and also me and her sleeping in that hospital bed together, Pam was on the cot and Kristi was in the chair. Everything was going fine for awhile. In April of 1997 me and my Mom, Dad, brothers and sisters and my Nanny and Pa went to see my aunt Patti because they were having an Old Settler's Reunion where we used to live. I stayed in a room with my Nanny and that night she got up and started spitting up blood again, but she made me promise not to tell anybody because she didn't want to go to the doctor, and I didn't until now. Life went on, but there became more doctors’ visits and more trips to OKC. As I got older I didn't go with Nanny as much to the doctors, and I regret it to this day. In early 1997 her primary physician told her she wouldn't live to see her 60th birthday, later that year, but she did! Again, Nanny told me she was going to live to see me walk across the graduation stage. In February 2001 Nanny was diagnosed in the last stages of PBC, she had to have a liver transplant. Nanny didn't tell anybody, I guess she didn't want to worry us. In May 2001 I graduated from high school, and Nanny was sitting in the audience smiling. Her health had really gone down by then. She started falling asleep at the table and in the chair. In October 2001 Nanny's health really started going down hill. I had stayed the night with her the night before she went into the hospital, I remember her coughing all night and me and her shared a macoronie and cheese t.v. dinner. She didn’t want to go to sleep that night. She finallly layed down at about 11:00. The next day Nanny was put in the Integris Baptist Hospital in OKC, she was in the transplant icu for a few days with a vent on her. The morning after she went in my Dad called me and told I had better come up there because it wasn't looking good. I remember going into the icu for the first time and seeing her laying there not talking, not moving, just there. She barely looked like herself. I started crying and hugged my Momma. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. But again my Nanny defeated the odds and came off the vent. Then she was moved to her own room, I remember calling her before I was supposed to go to work that morning so I could hear her voice, since she couldn't talk before while the vent was in her. I asked her what she was doing and she started crying and said waiting for you to walk in the door, so I took off work agian and drove up there with my Mom and brothers and sisters. I stayed that whole day and till 8:00 that night with her while my aunt Patti was on her way. I remember sharing her dinner with her, it was rice with beef tips and iced tea. She had walked all the way to the end of the hall that day and was very excited. She was excited about going home and getting to walk more, my Momma was supposed to help her. She got to come home the next day, it was on a Friday. By then we knew it was too late for a liver transplant. She came home on oxygen and in a wheelchair, but we had our Nanny back and that is all we cared about. My Mom had cooked a big dinner and my Nanny ate everything on her plate. I remember I was sitting beside her and she was licking the mashed potatoes off of the spoon. She hadn’t ate so well in a long time. The next day, Saturday, had gone all right. She had done the hockey pockey with my aunt Pam. That night I went out with my friends, which I should not of done. My aunt Marcia was staying with Nanny. That night Nanny stopped breathing, they could not wake her up. They called the ambulance and she was brought to the local hospital. She came awake that Sunday afternoon and wanted Coke, her favorite drink. From that point we knew all we could do was make her comfortable. She stayed in the hospital till Friday. She was in and out of conscience. I would go up there everyday on my lunch break and after work. One day I went up there with a hair styling magazine and asked Nanny if I should get my hair cut and she said NO! She never liked it when I would get my hair cut. We decided to bring her home on October 26, Friday. When they brought her in her house she looked at my Mom and smiled. She was put in her living room, her favorite spot. While we all stayed with her. Saturday when I went over there I couldn't stand going in the room. Her eyes were opened, but she wasn't there. At about 4:00 that afternoon I got back from Wal-Mart, I don't know what I was thinking going there, but I honestly believed Nanny wasn't going to die, she pulled out of everything else, this wasn't going to get her. We all went into the living room and my aunt Pam said this was it. I was sitting in the chair behind the bed, and I was so scared I was shaking, my Nanny couldn't go, who would I talk to, who would tell me everything was alright? On Saturday, October 27, 2001 at 4:18 p.m. Nanny took her last breath. She had lost her fight with PBC, but I don't believe she lost she defied all the odds and made it 20 years when she should of only made it 5. I don’t really remember much about the funeral. I remember going up there with my Mom, Dad, Pa, Pam, Gale, and Becky for the first time during the day and I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t even go near the casket and just sat on the couch and looked down, I couldn’t see my Nanny in that, it wasn’t real. Nanny had a beautiful service we played some Elvis’ songs. The last "talk" I remember having with Nanny was about 3 weeks before she had passed away. I went over there after work and we sat in the kitchen at the table. We ate chicken in biskit crackers with easy cheese and drank coke. I can't tell you exactly what we talked about, I think what had happened that day. But I think we ate the whole box of crakers and cheese. Nanny was my best friend and I only knew her my 18 years but she will always be in my heart for as long as I live. I know she is watching over all of us, and she isn't in pain anymore. She is an angel.