Tribute for my Mum

Mom, you are the strongest, smartest, and most resilient woman I know. And Mom, I know you didn’t want to go. I know you have fought so hard, & many times I’ve questioned how you could struggle for so long. You have been so much braver than I could ever imagine. You’ve been such an inspiration for me in more ways than you could ever realize, and I only wish now I could have told you. You’re fight for life was my source of encouragement when I thought I would never see a happy ending.

There are so many things I wish we could still talk about, so many future achievements I wish you could share with me. I will always miss those long phone conversations and weekly get togethers. I also know that in your own way you will always be there. This is a new chapter for us now, one where you gave me a bit of your final wave of peace so I could be there for you during your last moments, one where some things we just know & don’t need to say the words, and one where your strength will now be my strength. Although you are gone too soon, and it would’ve always been too soon, I feel blessed for the time that we did have and that you didn’t give up so that we could enjoy another day.

>> I read this at my Mum's funeral today. The service was beautiful & personal, just the way she would've wanted.

Link for Mum

Mum's obituary can be found here if you want to peruse:
Mum's Obituary at Thomas McAfee Funeral Home Website

The End

Mom passed yesterday (Sunday) at 6:30 p.m. Now she can finally be at peace. I feel blessed that I was there when it happened, as hard as it was to be strong.

Last Gasp

I sit here with my mother
Watching her suffocate to death.

Every breath a loud gasp,
her tongue swollen & bloody from dryness.

Before her next morphine dose she became restless.
She rolled over and threw her arms around me, clawing at my back.
"Ouch..." she painfully whispered,
Just like a child would say while showing mommy a freshly skinned knee.

Her only movement now is a violent jerk of her head upward with each gasp.
I watch her lips turn more white,
Her skin turn more blue.

I want to take the pain from her & make it my own.
I pray for her comfort & the end to come quickly.

Yet she still fights.
Hour after hour she drowns...

She doesn't want to go.

Last Days

We had some hope Mom would be able to come home. She was moved to a regular hospital room in the cancer ward on Wednesday evening and was still off the ventilator. On Friday afternoon, she began struggling more & more to breathe. They tried to give her an oxygen mask, but she kept ripping it off & also ripped out her feeding tube. We thought she wouldn't make it through the night, but it is now Sunday & she is still gasping for air. She is resting comfortably at least, thanks to morphine.

On Wednesday I went to visit her after work. Before I left, she shared one more of her hallucinations with me. She told me that a group of men had come into the room, but they were walking on the ceiling and just kept watching her. She told them they weren't supposed to be here yet. "I'm still alive," she said.

"I Won't Even Look Like the Same Person..."

Mom is still in the hospital for those of you following the story. She is in the Cardiac Care Unit, intensively monitored by various machines and nurses. She was able to get off the ventilator yesterday. She can only whisper right now because her throat is very sore from the tube, and she's unable to swallow so she's still receiving her food through a tube in her nose. I'm very happy that she's breathing on her own, it gives me some hope that she can come home soon.

I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever be able to have a normal conversation with my mother again. I'm happy that she can at least talk to me, but she's very confused and disoriented. Most of her conversations have been about the various hallucinations she's been experiencing. She doesn't remember from moment to moment what's has been happening. At first, I thought it was amusing when she was telling me about "the weird s**t that goes on around here" & started describing what could only be a figment of her imagination. As I left the hospital today, I stopped smiling. I realized that even though it may be better for mom's mental state to be out of it instead of panicking like she was when she first came to, I would like to be able to talk to her like we used to. I hate to think that I never will.

I asked my step dad today if she was just experiencing side effects from the morphine and whatever else they had her on. His only response was that they had her on very low doses at this point so it probably wasn't the cause. I didn't get an answer on what the cause is.

One of the nurses taking care of her came in to say goodbye today. She told Mom she would be off until Monday, that she had really enjoyed taking care of her, and she promised to be back and that she hoped Mom was doing even better by then. "I won't even look like the same person when you come in on Monday, I promise," Mom told her, "you'll see."

Visting Mom

Got back from visiting with mom a few minutes ago. It turns out she had a heart attack (a small one) yesterday, that's what caused her to take a turn for the worse. From the tests they've run, she's had at least one other in the last few months she didn’t know about. She is basically in congestive heart failure now, but they aren't able to really treat it with medicine because her pulse is too high & her blood pressure is too low, & the medicines available would make those worse. I guess her heart giving out is a less painful way for her to go than some of the alternatives, so I'm somewhat grateful.

They have her on the good drugs so she's not very alert, but she did come to for a short time while I was there. It was pretty horrible. She opened her eyes for a moment when I first said hello. I sat with her for awhile and just talked to her. My step dad came back in the room awhile later, we were supposed to leave, the nurses needed to do whatever. When we turned to go she grabbed my hand tightly and her eyes were wide open. She was in total panic, shaking her head & trying to mouth something. It looked like she was trying to say “no, no.” I tried to comfort her & tell her she needed to rest & calm down so she could come home, that we wouldn't leave her alone & she would be okay, she was doing much better today. She just kept slowly shaking her head. I finally left her when her next dose of morphine kicked in.

I'm pretty shaken right now. I would hate to be in her shoes, terrified & unable to talk, not knowing what's happening, knowing you're going to die & that you may never be able to say those last words. I just hope she doesn't go in the middle of the night without us there for her. As much as I don't want to watch her die, I know it would give her some comfort if at least one of us was there.

The Brave Fight

Many of you who know me personally are aware that my mother has been battling terminal breast cancer. Nearly three years ago, they gave her a year or less to live. Her response has been "screw you, I'm not giving up." I remember last year when one of the vertebrae in her back collapsed from cancer eating away at her bones, no one thought she'd make it, much less walk again. She was up and at 'em within a month. Many times we’ve thought the end was near, and she miraculously has bounced back to fight on another day.

Over the last few months, my mother has been on a very strong chemo that has had a great deal more side effects than her previous regimen. She’s been unable to truly live much of what little life she has left during this time. I call almost every day to check on her, and most of the time she’s too tired to talk or already asleep. When I come over to see her, she’s barely able to just sit up in her bed and have a brief conversation. Of course she’s been depressed and stir crazy. She told me a few weeks ago she was watching this show about mysterious deaths and autopsies on Discovery Health. This guy was found dead in parking lot of a hotel in a pool of blood. Everyone thought he’d been shot, but there was no bullet wound. The autopsy revealed a cancerous tumor had invaded a major artery and he just bled out. I told her not to watch that stuff. “I’m afraid, Dana. I don’t want to go like that, I can’t die that way…” What could I say to her? My step dad bought her a new car a few weeks ago and she hasn’t been able to drive it. I hated to ask why he bought it for her when it has been obvious she won’t be using it. I guess he thought she’d bounce back again, as always.

Now it seems she is losing her absolutely inspiring battle. She was admitted to the hospital yesterday, and had to move to the Intensive Care Unit today. Her tumor has invaded her lung, her lungs are filled with fluid, and she is unable to breathe without assistance from a respirator. If she’s strong enough, they will drain the fluid from her lungs tomorrow and hopefully send her home soon. Once there, her doctor has recommended she discontinue her chemotherapy treatments and just accept hospice care to keep her comfortable until the end. My mom has been taking chemotherapy almost continuously for over a year, hoping to stick around awhile longer. It seems that there is no longer a point to continuing treatment. I’ve been questioning how much more she should take for a long time.

She may not make it through the night. If she does, she will probably not make it to my birthday in a few weeks. Today I went to visit her in the ICU, and it hit me hard that Mom is going to die. I’ve been aware that my time with her is limited for many years now. I thought I had accepted the fact, but it doesn’t make it any easier when it actually comes to fruition. I guess I imagined she would just fade away, possibly dying peacefully in her sleep one night. I never thought that the gory stories of how cancer actually kills you would happen to her. I never imagined seeing her in a hospital bed, quiet, still, unable to recognize I’m there with her, and looking so small. It’s like it’s not the Mom I know in that bed. I looked at old pictures of her some time ago, and it struck me how much she aged in just a year after her first battle with cancer 10 years ago. People used to think we were sisters, even with a 26 year age difference. In a way, now she looks as if she’s already gone. This strong willed woman is now dependant on a machine to keep her alive. Today, she was still fighting, yanking the tube out and telling the nurses she could do it herself. Too bad she can’t…