Waving, Not Drowning. Usually.

shickalenia:

selfdoubtandsyphilis:

dankestrnemes:

do animals think in english or in the sounds they make

this is what yahoo paid $1.1 billion for

Well, probably not specifically for that.

I just want a record of this somewhere. I will never read this again after tonight.

My mother died on May 13th.

She became very ill on Friday, May 10th and was taken to the hospital.
My husband and I drove to the ER at NYHQ, and I waved to her as she was taken to the ICU and told her I loved her. She brightened up, and the elevator doors closed.
My aunt, my husband and I went to eat, then went back to the ICU. My mom was a little loopy, which was normal for her. She always went a little strange after being in the hospital. Something about relinquishing control, I suppose.

After some back and forth about her giving permission to be intubated to protect her airway, she agreed. I signed a DNR but gave permission for a central line and an arterial line. We’d done this last year and it saved her life, so there was no reason not to hope.
When we got home on the Friday I called the ICU and was told that she was intubated successfully and she was sedated.

I called the ICU on Saturday and was told that there was no improvement and that she was in critical condition.
We raced to the hospital (80 miles south) and were told that she was in multi organ failure. I gave permission for CVVH dialysis in a bid to reduce the fluid she was retaining (my poor, swollen mommy. She was unrecognizable) and also to remove the acid from her blood, since her one kidney was one of the organs that was failing. She was no longer sedated, but she was unresponsive.

Long story short, it didn’t work. My husband, aunt and I went to the hospital on Monday and I made the decision to stop treatment.

I was with her and held her hand as she left this world. My aunt was there as was my husband, all people she loved and who loved her. As far as dying goes, apart from being in one’s bed, it was a good death, I suppose. It took less than 10 minutes which I am given to understand is very quick as these things go.

I last saw my mother two weeks ago today. We went to Boulder Creek and Target. She worried about my back pain, which had likely been caused by the extreme stress of my failed IVF and by finding her unconscious in her bed the week before. I kissed her goodbye from the driver’s seat of my car.

The last time I spoke to my mother on the phone was on Thursday, May 9th. She told me that she loved me more than anything.

On Friday, before I left I told her I loved her so much I was annoying even myself. She told me several times that she loved me, and as I was fitting the oxygen mask over her face, she said “I lo lo lo lo” and laughed a little. I kissed her.

That was the last time she responded to me.

I lack the imagination needed to visualize a life without my mother. I don’t know how to get through the next 10 minutes without her, let alone the rest of my life. It will get easier. I will eventually be ok.

I will always, always, always need my mother.