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Bereavement

My mum has gone.

135 replies

Mouseface · 25/11/2013 18:08

I'm so sorry but this is going to be very long.

My wonderful mum passed away, aged just 59, in my arms, on Saturday morning at 3.20am, with her children, husband and her closest sister all holding a part of her fragile frame.

She told me she would never forgive me for moving away from my home town, ever. I can't get that out of my head but I hope that now, maybe she will, and in time those words will fail but it was the last thing of any clarity that she said to me.

My parents found out on Wednesday that she had very aggressive lung cancer (Adenocarcinoma) and Lymphangitis which meant it had spread to her lymph nodes, it had taken hold so terribly quickly, (I knew when I saw her a few weeks ago that she had cancer, she had that 'look' and I told my dad that, I knew, I just knew, when he emailed me saying it was a just chest infection and that her MS was causing complications), that she wouldn't have coped with chemo or any kind of treatment come to think of it.

I think that she was fully aware of the fact that she had mere hours and not days, but she sat there telling us all that she was going shopping to get new PJs etc on Monday (today) when we all knew that she'd never see the sun rise on that Saturday morning.

They'd already drained 3 litres of blood from her left lung on Wednesday and said that they'd try to drain more blood from her lungs if she wanted but they said it would reabsorb.....

In other words, they were telling her there was no point putting her through such an uncomfortable procedure, when she only had hours to live.

She was very lucid and alert at times, talking as best she could to us about things that she'd done in her past, the things that we, her children, had gotten up to, and at others she was very distressed as she couldn't breathe.

I sort of pulled rank as my dad had gone for a much needed rest and asked for some metazalan, just to take the edge off her anxiety, she was already on morphine but I knew that we were all just doing palliative care when I walked into her room to find no monitors,, no drips, nothing - 'no alarms and no surprises'.

My aunt and I washed her, massaged her hands and feet as they'd swollen, she'd started to get sores and I asked for her to be catheterised, because she couldn't feel when she was weeing so they'd put pads in her underwear.

She was able to sip water but nothing else. They removed her NG when I got there and it was covered in blood, I was the only one with them in the room.

We took breaks and tried to have some food, always leaving two people with her to help her sit forward when she needed it but as the night drew in, we all knew that it was coming, death, it was so cold in that room and yet so very hot in the rest of the ward.

She grew more pale and but became increasingly restless so again, I asked them for some sedation, they gave her some more morphine, sedation and finally, finally, she stopped fighting and went to sleep. Peace filled the room, the silence was suddenly so loud, we could all hear the 'rattle' and that it wouldn't belong and to be very honest, I was wishing the time away as I watched her change before my eyes.

We all stood, all at once, just before she left us, as if we knew, not saying a word to one another. I was the second to hold her, to save goodbye, my younger sister first, she stopped breathing in my arms and I checked her pulse, told my dad she'd gone, made my brother say goodbye and then dad held her.

He broke down, begging, screaming and pleading with her to come back, asking her what he'd do now? What would her do without her to look after, he needed her, time and again asking her to come back, change her mind.

That was crippling to see. She was only 59. We managed to get him to sit once he'd let that out but I will never, ever forget that or the way she looked when she left her body.

I managed to get some time alone with her once she'd gone, as we waited for the nursing staff to come and arrange her, so I held her close and told her that there would be no more pain, no more medication, or tests, or fear, or worry, no more waking wondering how much her body would ache that day, or go to bed wondering if she's wake and be able to move because of her MS.

I told her that we'd moved to give DD and DS (Nemo, she loved calling him Nemo - our little survivor) a better quality of life and that if we hadn't, Nemo might not have made it because we'd have been assigned to a different hospital and everything happens for a reason.

DD has a boyfriend and is so happy at school, has wonderful friends, and is at last settled here, as are we. I told her to go and find the friends that she'd lost, our family who had gone before her, that they'd be waiting for her and just how much I loved her and always would. The nurses came in and I let them do what they needed.

I told her I'd look after dad and I stayed with him until DH came on Sunday for me at 3.30pm, then we left Dad to grieve, be with her, walk around the house, doing what he had to.

I slept in her sewing room, with her things around me for a few hours and let him sleep until he woke around 1pm, and then people came to see him, quick drink and left, knowing he needed to be left.
Everyone who needed to know, knows, and he has lots of support where he lives, and around but I'm so scared that he may give up, he might just stop. He is so fragile, and so lost without her, his best friend and the love of his life.

I could sense her here on Saturday night, I could smell her hair as they'd showered her and blow dried her hair that morning, before I got there... she wanted to 'look nice for me'

I'm not sure what I'm going to do without my mum, DD (almost 15) knows and dreadfully upset, she was so very close to her, even though we live away from there now. Nemo wouldn't understand. He didn't even ask where she was.... he has a mental age of 2.5/3 even though he's 5 in May so why would he? We'll tell him when he asks and if the time feels right before then.

Sorry for any typos and for such a long sad post but I wanted to let this out, and here was the only place to do that without being scared to say the words I needed to.

I've arranged the flowers and the announcement for the newspaper as my father had asked me to today.... now we just have to wait until next Wednesday when we get to say goodbye one last time.

I know that it won't be my mum in the coffin, it's just the body she was given... I know that she will remain close to us all, even though we live somewhere else now and the fact that she is no longer be in pain, suffering, day in, day out is such a comfort but I know that her leaving hasn't really sunk in yet.

Maybe it will next week......

Thank you for reading this. xx

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dingit · 25/11/2013 18:10

So sorry x