My shingles are not gone.

I took my last dose of Prednisone Friday and yesterday I noticed I was getting itchy again. And then I woke up today to that familiar, burning pain, drowsy and weak and more than a little pissed off that this isn’t over yet. So, tomorrow I get another weeks worth of steroids and hope it will do the trick. I’m also taking Lysine and it seems to be helping, if slowly.

This morning I went to visit my Great Grandma, who is in the hospital following a fall. It was not a pleasant visit. My mom had warned me, but even so I was unprepared for the sharp decline she has taken. I don’t think she knew who I was exactly, but she knew that she knew me. I held her hand and sat with her for about 45 minutes, but she never really responded to anything. I managed to leave her asleep and I felt like a big wimp as I left her there, alone.

The thing is, she’s 98. She’s had a good long life . I just wish the end would go as smoothly for her as she deserves. It is hard to see her so frail.

It made me think of playing at her house when I was little, she always had soda in glass bottles and chick-o-sticks hidden in a jar on the counter. She was more than a little bit of a pack rat whose extensive fabric collection has since become part of mine and she gave me a copy of “Gone With the Wind” when I was in the 4th grade. She loved to read and drove like a bat out of hell. She’s always been good for an ego boost… telling me how beautiful I was and how wonderfull my children are, even as she’s slowly lost much of her awareness of the present.