I generally don't post stuff like this - EverCrest Message Forums

Author

Topic: I generally don't post stuff like this

Caanis Lupus

Rub me?

posted 08-20-2003 05:07:15 PM

I tend to not be in the touchy feeling drama queen threads, or at least don't drop my 2 cents like everyone else. I hardly know some of you and the rest I don't know.

August 15th, 2003 at roughly 3am my Mother died. She was 55.

She had been in the hosipital since May 12th when she had a pain in her back. The pain turns out to be an inflamed nerve that was caused by a bacteria infection. This bacteria infection wrecked havoc on her body and damaged the valves on the left side of her heart. Those valves needed to be replaced.

She was diabetic, smoker, and didn't have the strongest immunue system. The flu can and has put her in ICU. The cardiologist explained to us that the procedure was "fairly routine" and recovery on average was 8-10 days. Figuring for the infection, her diabetes, lower immune strength, and that she smoked I was thinking realistically at a month.

Well her lungs never came back up to full strength and she had to have a tracae(sp) hook up to a respirator with oxygen. With scheduled breathing treatments to try and get her lungs back up to strength. It was explained that this was the number one problem with deflating the lungs during the operation that they may take some time to get back up in strength. Pheunoum(sp)(you know fluid in the lungs) is the other concern. Of course her diabeties was having a couple spikes to mess with her recovory. She had been doing good for a couple weeks after the surgery and everything look somewhat good until her Potassium level shot so high she was no longer lucid. Her adomen has become distended also. The took her from CCU to the cardiac recovery room and got her stable. A week after that they moved her back to CCU and she was having trouble with her kidneys. She resonded to the diurectics(sp)(makes you produce urine) and things look bleak, but she is moving foward.

She goes septic and the kidneys and digestive system are having major problems. The have to stop giving her the tube feed and swith her to TPN(IV feeding). Put her on dialsys and diuretics again. She seems to start to pick up over the next week and in fact she is doing pretty damn good since we are joking with the nurse one night. She is not on that many med for her heart, pace maker is out, she is back on tube feeding, stopped the dialsys, and she is staying lucid. The following morning she crashes. They basically shotgunned her with alot of blood pressure elavators, a med for heart rhythm, and they take her off the tube feed again(this time was even a renal formula) and have to put her back on TPN. Also they place her on constant dialsys again since the kidneys have failed and are not cleaning her blood again.

She responds to the meds. She picks up kidney function again and is once again lucid and seems to be doing alittle better. They stop the dialsys and can start to cut back on the meds for her heart but keep her on the TPN. She is not tolerating the tube feed which is indicating major problem with her digestive tract. The kideny specialist is not optimistic anymore nor is the pulmonary specialist. She starts to go septic again and the kideny doctor asks what we should do.

I explain to him she is going to realize very soon if she has not already that this is taking way to much time. I told him to put her back on the machine, get her lucid and clear enough to understand what is fully going on and then we can see what she wants to do. My Mother always believed in quality over quanity. She had expressed this to me and my Aunt Brenda(whom she had moved in with to keep an eye on each other) She doesn't believe in heroic effort to sustain a broken body. If her quality of life was going to impaired to such a degree she would not be able to enjoy the things she does or be a burden, she would rather not survive. I explain that to the doctor and he agrees that it is a good thing to take one more try. Me and my Aunt Brenda talk about it and agree that things are not looking good but she supported me trying one more time.

She gets better, she regains lucidity and a good number of the meds can be turned off but she is not producing urine. Her liver is enlarging also at this point from the TPN(hard on the liver and kidneys) She is still on dialsys and the respirator has been on her the entire time expect the few times when she was doing really well. At that point they started to ween her off but never could. She has been getting morphine shots for pain and a few anti-anxnity shots to help her with being bed ridden like she is.

The morning Thursday 14th of August my Mother expressed to several doctors and my Aunt that she didn't want to be on life support anymore. She was told by everyone that do so will most likely cause her to die and she understood. She waited until I got to the hosipital from work before having them start to turn off everything. I had a couple hours with her to talk to her. I told her I understood this was her choice and it was ok, even if it hurt. I could not put in to words how it hurt expect that it was such a pure sense of pain that I wanted it to stop but not. It hurt so much that I could only figure this is the true depth of the love I had for my Mother and the loss of her in my life. But it was going to be only the physical loss of her. I am her son and thru me she will be alive in my heart and mind. Family and friends will keep her alive in their hearts and minds also.

My Aunt Brenda, Uncle Joe and his family were there. We all said what we could to her for those precious few hours before they had everything turned off. They had one IV going for a pain medication that would also make her sleepy to ease her.

The doctors explained that it could have taken a few minutes to a couple days. She might even pull thru. We talked with each other after she drifted to sleep and even joked that if she did pull thru she would be so pissed. But we all agreed that we would put up with her being pissed if it meant she was with us for alittle more time. As 7:30pm came up it was agreed that we were not going to hover around my Mother like vultures. I told them that not only would she be copletely pissed off at us for doing so, we could not do anything to help her either way by being there. My Mother had even expresssed to my Aunt that she understood and it was ok that we had tried one last time, even when it did not look like she would make it. My Mother has to had been the strongest person I have ever known. She understood her actions. She understood she had other options. She stuck to her beliefs to the end. If I am just half as strong as she was at that moment I will be very very lucky.

She had wanted to be donated to a medical school. She hated funerals and found them a waste of money and time for people still alive. She did understand that is how some get the closure they need, but she did not go to her Mother's funeral a few years ago. She did not want us to have a service for her or a grave. I contacted a couple places and the response had not been what I wanted. One has not even had the balls to return my voice mails. We have had to decide to have her creamated. She would have understood we tried and that life has to go on. I am waiting on to call everyone back to finalize these plans with the funeral home and the hospital.

I will not add the cliche of spend time with your parents...some hate their parents and have good reason to do so. In fact I was kinda moved to write this in a couple ways, one was Pesco's thread on his parents fucking him over and the responses of others. My Mother was the kind of Mother that would get pissed off after I told her I got a new truck and got a 13% APR because I could have had her cosign and get a better APR. Or that I just finish paying off debts caused by a girlfriend trashing my place after I broke up with her. I wish everyone could had a mother like my Mother. Then again if everyone did we would not need so many cops.

I love my Mother and if you actually read all this...you can share in that love. I might write some more about her later. I was told by several people that I can not do her the injustice of not sharing what I know and felt about my Mother with others. So if you found this a waste of your time, avoid my threads with the tag. I need to go outside for abit.