ChromeAngel

0 comments by ChromeAngel on Mar 21st, 2013

This follows on from the "i've had better christmasses thread" and takes it to a whole new level.

To recap the winter so far:  Before Christmas my grandmother passed away, then my mother was hospitalised with a bleed on her brain on the day of gran's funeral.  The bleed was life threatening, but blocked by surgical intervention.  The my father was admitted to hospital with a chest infection.  Dad recovered enough to return home in two weeks, while mum underwent rehabilitation for the brain injury resulting from the bleed.

On the week begging  the 11th of March Mum was making a good recovery.  The nausia she had been suffering was being controlled by drugs and she was practising aided walking.  Things were looking up.

On the week beggining the 18th things went down hill, she was increasingly tired and showing weakness on her left hand side.  On my regular evening visit on Wednesday the 20th she was looking decidedly lopsided and complaining of a "water works" infection.  The lopsidedness I attributed to a tiring day of many visits and therapies.

Around 21:00 on the Wednesday night she suffered another massive brain bleed, and vomiting blood, that stopped her breathing.  She was resuscitated and given an emergency CAT scan and the specialists in London consulted.  The conclusion was very bad, there was nothing anyone could do but make her comfortable.  Unresponsive, she's moved to a private room and put on high pressure oxygen to help her breathing.

Around 00:30 on the 21st I got the call on my mobile "your mother is seriously ill".  Hospital code for "get here at once, before she croaks".  I call Andy her SO, throw on some clothes and drive over to the hospital where the registrar fills me in in on the goings on.  I'm holding her hand when Andy arrives at 01:00.

We watch helplessly as her blood/O² level drops over the next few hours despite the high pressure Oxygen helping her to breathe.  The staff then reveal that the burst ulcer whos blood she vomited earlier is still bleeding, filling her stomach and throat with blood that bubbles in the breathing mask.  If they pump it out the more she bleeds.  The O² monitor is beeping continually, warning of the dangerously low levels.  Since there is nothing anyone can do the Doctor, Andy and I decide not to prolong this any more and switch it all off

Without the high pressure Oxygen, she's gasping like a landed fish.  I spend the last few minutes of my mother's life looking into the helplessly gasping face of the woman who brought me into the world and raised me alone for the first ten years of my life.

Finally she vomits a good lire of blood, black as treacle and she's gone.

Our family is pulling together to help.  Grandad is devastated, having lost both children and his wife to strokes.  All he can ask is "why?"

Blogging is therapeutic, putting my memories and feelings into prose, but right now i'm going to pieces....

TLDR;
My mum died.