Hemolytic–Uremic Syndrome in a Grandmother

摘要

In the spring of 2007, just weeks before my college gradu-ation, my parents called to tell me that my grandmother was sick. I was worried to hear that she was in the hospital, but like the rest of my family, I had little doubt that she'd be better in no time. At a spry 82 years, my grandmother was the picture of health. She was a nonsmoker, a nondrinker, and had had no medical problems except for mild asthma. A world traveler, avid gardener, and savvy businesswom-an, she has been known to do her grocery shopping, at-tend a bank board meeting, talk her way out of a speeding ticket, and rearrange the living room furniture all in time to prepare dinner for 12 and cut fresh roses for the table. As a loving wife, mother of 5, and grandmother of 10, she is the family matriarch and holds us together in a way I never fully appreciated until that familiar structure was suddenly threatened