My grandmother could pass away

Hello, my grandmother (71) was recently diagnosed with congestive heart failure back in early December 2025. Since then she has been in the hospital 3 times. The first time was when they diagnosed the heart failure, the second time she ended up getting viral pneumonia about a week or two after her diagnosis visit and the third time, about one week after she came home from the hospital for pneumonia she got a horrible lung infection. She is in the hospital now at the time im writing this. The doctor said its one of the worst lung infections he has ever seen, its very bad. They are saying it was caused by either the covid virus or even the common cold virus.

They are saying that they will give her one more round of strong steroids to see if it starts to improve but if not they said they are thinking about putting her on a ventilator. If she goes on the ventilator she only has a 10% chance coming off of the ventilator, meaning she will most likely die on the ventilator. She says she will refuse the ventilator, she does not want to do it. If she refuses to go on the ventilator then we are not sure what the next course of action will be or how long she will live afterwards.

This is very hard for me to think about. My grandmother basically raised me, she is more like a mother to me. I have 2 young boys and a baby on the way due in 4 months. My boys adore their granny, and it will be so hard to explain to them that granny won't be coming home if the worst happens. They have never experienced significant loss before. My youngest is to little to understand but my oldest will absolutely understand and will probably be very upset. Im pregnant with my first daughter and my grandmother was so happy for me to have a girl she said she at least wants to live long enough to see the baby girl. Its devastating to me thinking about my daughter never getting to know my grandmother. My grandparents are the only grandparents my kids have. Both of my husbands parents are passed away and he has no living family. My father is passed away and my mother is not a great person (hence why my grandparents raised me). I have other family but most of them live in another state.

If my grandmother passes away my grandfather will be alone in his house. His son passed away in june last year and now there is a good chance his wife will pass away too. Im considering moving my family into my grandfather's home with him so he will not be alone if my grandmother does pass away. The house is big enough for all of us. He cannot afford to live in his house without my grandmother as they are on a fixed income and still paying off their home.

My husband and I own our own home, we will probably either have to rent it out or sell it if we go to live with my grandfather. My grandmother was a big shopper, I wouldn't call her hoarder level but she does own a lot of stuff and has a hard time getting rid of things she doesn't need, so we would have to do a HUGE purge of stuff from her house to fit my family of 5 comfortably in her home with my grandfather. We just applied for my oldest son to go to private school and we are waiting on an acceptance. If we do end up moving in with my grandfather we will live too far away from the school for him to go there, so we will have to find another school closer to my grandparents house.

Basically if this happens, so much is going to change. Its going to be extremely hard on everyone in my family. Our lives are pretty much going to be flipped on their heads. I wish none of this was happening, I thought id have at least 10 more years before I had to worry about any of this. My grandparents have both always been very healthy. My grandfather still is, but my grandmother is spiraling downward fast its only been 2 months since her diagnosis and now she could go any day. Its just happening too fast. I dont know what will actually happen if she goes. I have all of these ideas but I dont know for sure how anything will play out and it makes me feel awful thinking about it but its all I can think about at the same time. This will be my first major loss. My father died when I was young but I wasn't super close with him or anything. My grandmother is a whole other story, she always been my everything.

Anyways thanks for reading if you made it this far. Im not sure what im looking for posting this. I guess I just needed to write it all out somewhere, to get all of my thoughts out of my head or else they would just play on loop in there forever. I hope the infection gets better and I hope she gets to come home. The doctors were talking about possible hospice. I just feel defeated, like all I can do is sit here and think, because there's nothing I can actually do but wait.