In September of 2018, my dad went over to my grandma's house. She told him that she wasn’t feeling that good. My dad saw that the left side of her lip was not moving so he immediately took her to the hospital. After hours at the hospital and many tests, the doctors realized that she had three strokes. The doctor said, “You have two options, one, have her have a risky surgery, or two, not risk the surgery but she could possibly have more life-threatening strokes.”

While all of this was going on, I was at school. My mom picked me up after volleyball practice had ended, then she told me what happened. I tried to hold back my tears but I could only think of what might happen. We went to the hospital that night and there was my grandma, sitting in a hospital bed. The room was on the top floor and you could see the sunset peak through the curtain. It was sad seeing her there and now I couldn’t hold my tears back. I tried not letting my mom or grandma see me so I stared out the window praying for her to get better.

My mom sat next to my grandma while she decided whether or not to have her have the surgery or not to have it. My grandma started to say how she didn’t think this place was sanitary for surgery. The nurse started to tell her that she would be moved to a different room for the surgery and it was sanitary. My grandma was still confused, so my mom asked her “where do you think you are?” My grandma responded, “well, we're under a bridge.” Silence fell in the room and at this point, my mom knew what to choose. Earlier that day she had already thought her hospital room was transformed into her house. The things she was saying didn't make sense and they realized that the stroke had really affected her brain. My mom gave it some more thought and sent her to surgery praying that everything would be okay.

My mom came home before the surgery began and she was not sure if she made the right decision. My sister, mom, and I sat at the kitchen table when my mom told us that our grandma was going into surgery and she didn’t know if having her do the surgery was the right decision. We all started to cry and hoped and prayed she would be back to normal grandma again.

My grandma would have the surgery the next day and I would be at school. That whole day I was out of it, I was way too busy worrying about her. When we finally got out of school after the longest seven hours of my life, my sister and I drove up to the hospital and met our mom there. Right, when we saw our mom in the lobby I immediately asked how our grandma was. “She is out of surgery and everything went fine,” my mom said with a relieved smile.  The weight on my shoulders disappeared and I could finally breathe again.