Nothing can prepare you for this...

As some of you may or may not know, my mom succumbed to her lengthy battle with heart and lung disease on Tuesday, Sept 8th. She had been sick on and off for the past 10 years but we had no idea that she would pass away so soon. She was admitted to the hospital on Monday Aug 31st to have fluid removed from around her lungs. Over the past few years, this had become a yearly tradition for her. Usually by the end of summer, due to the heat and humidity, she would become short of breath primarily due to the accumulation of fluid. She underwent the procedure to have this fluid extracted on an almost yearly basis, so we had no reason to suspect that this hospitalization would be any different than the previous ones.

After a few days on a regular floor, she was sent upstairs to ICU where they performed the fluid draining procedure and not long afterwards, things were looking up. Her oxygen levels were better, her blood pressure wasn't bad. We figured a few more days to ensure that she had stabilized and she'd probably be back home. This did not turn out to be the case. I went to visit her on Friday Sept 4th and she was in pain from the chest tube they installed to drain the fluid. The doctors pulled us aside and discussed possible heart surgery - something to do with an atrial valve replacement, I believe. Although her oxygen levels were ok, her lungs were not looking good. One was partially collapsed, the other looked as though it had the beginnings of emphysema. They would need to perform additional tests to determine if that was the case. Their primary concern though was her one and only kidney which was starting to fail. The heart and lung issues worried me, but the kidney issue didn't seem to bother me too much. She would need dialysis, but she'd gone through this once before when she was battline pnuemonia. It was only temporary that time, though so I was hoping this would be the same. That is where things took a turn for the worse.

During the operation on Monday Sept 7th to install her dialysis catheter, she went into cardiac arrest. They resusitated her, but her vitals were not good. They attempted to hook her up to dialysis later that afternoon but her body rejected it. Her blood pressure plummeted and while her one kidney appeared to still be working, the doctors were worried that things would become dire if she didn't undergo dialysis soon. Dad called me around 9:30 that night - the doctor wanted to speak to us again. By the time I arrived, she was stable and we were able to see her for a short time. She had agreed to be intubated and sedated for the surgery so she was not coherent while we visited. Her blood pressure was back up and her heart rate was ok. If she continued to remain stable, they would attempt dialysis again the next day. We left the hospital around midnight and I planned on getting up at 5am Tuesday to call the nurse and get a status. We didn't make it to 5am. At 4am, I got a call from Dad. Her heart had stopped again at 3:30am and things had turned dire. Her vitals were not good after having been resusitated a second time. It wasn't until this point, that it finally sunk in. I was losing her.

We had gotten used to the up and down roller coaster of mom's many health issues. She'd go into the hospital to get something looked at and she'd end up coming home with two new problems. Fixing one thing often times caused other things to go wrong. It was a vicious cycle. Even still, I was so focused that things would get better this time around, just like they always had in the past. It wasn't until the first heart attack that I started to think otherwise. She had never had one of those before and deep down, I believe it was the most likely cause of her demise.

By the time I arrived at the hospital at 4:30am on Tuesday Sept 8th, I quickly came to the realization that I was visiting my mom for the last time. My Dad gave the order to the doctor to not resusitate her if her heart stopped again. It was probably one of the hardest things he's ever had to say. We stayed by her side the entire time and after a few minutes we were joined by B, my husband and my husband's mom. At that point, mom was still intubated and on a respirator. She was only semi-coherent but would open her eyes at times. She didn't move much, but I'm pretty sure she could hear us as I remember her squeezing my hand when I told her that J and B were on their way to see her. Those precious few hours were a blur to me. Maybe because I was running on only a few hours of sleep, but I remember spending the entire time going back and forth between looking at the monitor that displayed her vitals and looking at her. It was like an up and down tennis match. I should have just ignored the monitor, but I was shocked by what I saw on that screen. I watched as her oxygen levels steadily declined. I had never seen mom's oxygen level lower than 80 before, but at that point it displayed 60, then 50-something, then down to 30, etc. The nurse came in and gave her half a dose of morphine which slowed her respirations to yet another level I had never seen before. Her heart rate had been through the roof, but that too decreased steadily after the medication. It all happened so fast. Sometime around 6am, I glanced up at the monitor again. Her oxygen level fell to zero, her respirations were controlled almost entirely by the machine and the heart blips went from short, steady peaks to a flat line. It was like I was living in a movie. Even after all my years as a nursing assistant, I have never witnessed anything like that before. The nurse came in to say that her heart had just stopped and I fell apart into what seemed like a million pieces.

to be continued...