My Journal Of Mom

A july night in 1999, I came home from a Hootie and The Blowfish concert

and I had my first real breakdown since my mom had died.
 I had been sad, mad, quiet...
but this was a real breakdown that I will never forget.

What did I do to get through it? I sat in my office and wrote...

wrote a detailed recap of the last 8 weeks of my moms life.  

Not my best writing, because it was written through many tears,

but to look back at it on bad day,

(yes, still having bad days 20 years later...)

It puts things into perspective to see what

a strong individual my mom was <3

I never I imagined this would be something

that I would or could share, but it is safe in my blog...

My Journal of Mom
July 1999


So it all started at the end of February.

I got a call from dad. He was in his car on the way to the hospital.

Mom had a Dr. appt and they sent her right to St. Lucs Hospital. She had an irregular heartbeat.

We were not sure as to what they would do. I felt that I should go home but I waited a few days.

By this time Eric was out of town.The kids went to Cindy's and I went home.

I was there for almost a week. During this time her cardiologists were trying

to decide whether to do an ablation to her

heart or put in a pacemaker.

She went in for surgery but came out with nothing.

The wrong side of her heart had the damage and they could not do anything at the time.

When mom woke up she was so weak. She was weak even before she went in.

But for some reason when she woke up she was different.

She was a lot like she was before she ever got sick when she was 45.

She not only acted as independent as she used to but she sounded like she used to.

It was almost as if being put under brought her old self back to us.

I could not get enough of talking to her. I would go to the hospital as early

as possible just to be with her. I would read to her , watch t.v. with her,

feed her, and just sit and talk to her.

I did not want to leave but the doctors did not know what the next step was.

I went home (back to Charleston). She ended up having the pacemaker

put in and we thought everything was O.K. After one more week

(Which made 3 weeks in all) she got to go home.

I felt so much better knowing she was home. But when I talked to her she

seemed so weak and frustrated. Her strength was not coming back

and she had this horrible rash. The Drs. Once again had no answers

as to what the rash was from so they put her on steroids.
This is when the 2nd call came. I will never forget it.

I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang. It was Dad calling from

the emergency room at St. Mary's Ozakee.

He was crying saying that I needed to come home on the next flight.

Mom was unable to breathe and they were working on her.

He did not know if she would make it. All I could do was scream and cry.

No one was home so I called Eric at work and he came right home.

I called the travel agent and they got me on the next flight.

What a horrible feeling not knowing whether or not my mom

would still be alive by the time I got there.

When I got there, Lisa was there to pick me up.

We went to mom and Dads for a few minutes but I needed to go to the hospital to see mom.

By this time it was around 11:00 p.m. mom was intibated so she could not talk

but she was awake. The first thing that she did when she saw me was

mouth the words "Help Me"

I could not help but to cry but not let her see me.

I stood and talked to her for a while trying to convince her that things would be O.K.

 By the next morning the nurses had sedated her to the point of unconsciousness.

They said she needed to be this way.

They had figured out that she was diabetic. She also had so many other

problems that all the drugs she was getting had to be adjusted every hour.

It was a constant watch of numbers on a monitor

to see how she was doing at that particular minute. There was no change after about a week so I went back home for a week.

Then dad called and said that things were not going good.

That she was so sick and had so many problems. Her open valve had opened up more.

They also wanted to take out the breathing tube so they had to wake her up.

She did not wake up. This is when I decided to go home again.

When I called from Charlotte during my layover I was told that she had

opened her eyes and was waking up.

This helped me get home with a much more positive out look.

When I got there she was up but was not yet ready to have

the feeding tube taken out. But just seeing her eyes open

and to have her squeeze our hands was enough.

She would try to mouth words to us which was frustrating

because we could not understand what she was saying.

But it was enough to just be there with her.

Then they finally took the tube out but she had no voice.

Things were status quo for then so I went back home.
A few days after I got back I asked Dad to call me from

her room so that I could talk to her.

I did not think She would talk to me but I just wanted to talk to her.

I was taken by surprise when I said hi that she talked back.

I could hear her clear as day.

We had a great conversation.

The last one if I remember right.

The most important thing she said to me was " I love you and that's that"

Dad took the phone back and asked me what I was saying

because he did not hear mom talking. I could not understand

how he did not hear her because I had such a normal conversation with her.

It is something that I will never understand but I think it was meant to be that way.

The next call I got was after she was moved from CICU to the 3rd floor.

Again they did not know how much longer she would hold on.

I went back home and sat with her some more.

Again, we watched t. v. and I just sat and watched her

and talked to her and held her hand.   

She was struggling to hold on to every last minute.

She was not going to give up without a fight.

I went back home only to come back a few days later, to say goodbye.

She just laid there, struggling with every breath she took.

This is the day the DR came in and told us she was having periods of apnea.

Only the feeding tubes and meds were keeping her alive.

She was not going to get any better, ever.

We were just prolonging the inevitable. At the last minute the

idea of a heart transplant was brought up. Only hours before my plane was to leave.
After serious consideration,

by the whole family, did we decide against it.

She would have to be transferred to another hospital only

to be accepted as a candidate. She had so many other problems.

She may not have even made it through the transfer.

I went back home as planned on Thursday with no decisions being made.

By Saturday Dad had decided to stop all feedings and meds. This was done on Sunday.

I asked Lisa to call me from her room and put the phone to her ear.

I told her how much I loved her.

I told her that she had fought hard enough that it was time to just close her eyes and go to sleep.

I told her that I wished that I could be half the mom to my kids that she was to me.

I told her how much I admired her and looked up to her.

I told her that it was time and that everyone would be O.K.

and that we would take care of each other.

I told her again how much I loved her.

Lisa took the phone as everyone was by her side.

And not but 40 minutes later did my phone ring, Mom has passed away.