Nurses Rock

I've been spending a lot of time with my Grandma who is in the hospice ward at the hospital here in Duluth.  Can I just say how great the staff of hospices are?  What a hard job that would be.  Most of the staff we deal with are middle-aged women nurses.  Nurses are the best.  They are so sweet and helpful and always manage to bring a smile, or in the case of my Grandma, a huge laugh. 

My Grandma thinks swears are extremely funny.  Yesterday there was a nurse who helped my Gram with some, (heh hem), personal details and my Gram said she appreciated her help and expertise and the nurse said, "I really know my shit."  Grandma about busted a nut laughing (just kidding, my Grandma doesn't have nuts.)  Also, one day there were lots of visitors in the room.  The adults were talking about something, but I wasn't listening.  I was listening to Kira tell my Grandma a series of stories that were all prefaced with "Okay, I have to swear for this."  Grandma loved those.  And Kira loves to swear.  Win-win. 

Today while I was sitting there with my Grandma, she was sleeping and I was eating a salad I got from the cafeteria.  There were some tomatoes in there that I think they were trying to pass off as cherry tomatoes, but they were huge.  In retrospect,  I should have cut them up but I thought I could handle it.  I put one in my mouth whole.  I didn't want to bite it because they explode when you bite them.  So I shoved the entire thing in and then tried to push it between my molars with the fork but it was too big and hard (that's what she said HA HA HA!).  It was like a gag ball and I started to panic but then I calmed down and took a deep breath around the tomato and worked through it.  I knew that if I did choke, one of those nice hospice ladies would give me the Heimlich, and that was ultimately what saved me from freaking out and sucking it into my windpipe.  I was so confident in those ladies that I ate two tomatoes like that.  They were delicious.