One week later, then bam! My own mother needed to be admitted to the ED for an illness that we still don’t know the diagnoses for. Suddenly she was on deaths door as well. I still had my badge from working there and got more information than most would. It was a sickness that almost took her life. So now… I am broken. I don’t know how else to put it. I am not the same person. I dont think that I ever will be again. I’m torn between two places. I live 2000 miles apart from my family and here where I convinced my mother to move to, but what I have realized is that I can’t take care of her on my own.

I wrote a really nasty text to her family after about 7 days in the hospital watching her deteriorate, me there by myself. It was, well.. it went something like this: This is the last group message that I am writing. If any of you want to know how mom is doing then call the hospital. As I have relayed to you, she is still in critical condition and has has had multiple tests. The CT of her body came back negative and she is now going for a CT on her brain and will have a consult with Neurology tomorrow. So, this is how I feel: Brother, if you give a flying fuck about the woman who gave birth to you, get on a plane and get The Hell up here. Aunt Sh: I appreciate your prayers, but quite frankly I do not believe in god and if I ever do get to meet him face to face I will do my best to kick the living shit out of him. M: take your positive energy and shove it up your ass. S: You have been calling almost every day and I am sorry I haven’t gotten back with you more often. Aunt Su: Thanks for the comic relief. It is much needed at this point. J: you get the gold star! You have been the picture of support. I’ll tell you what. Those of you who I have just bitched out, how about you call J and ask her what it means to truly care. So, like I said, call the hospital if you want any information. I’m sure SPH is listed in the phonebook. Under hospitals.

All I feel is pain.

It’s, deep and debilitating.

I aided in my step-moms death a month ago. She was the replacement of my own mother while my mom decided to fall off the wagon after her second husband passed.

I prayed, screamed actually, that she don’t leave until I got there, back to Michigan that is. I knew that my father needed me and my step-brother. I had to go in and take over. After all I’m the strong one right? I always have been. I crossed the Atlantic in November on a 46 foot sailboat. Half way across, 1000 miles out and 100o miles to go, the self-steering broke. Well, that was it for the fun-days-in-the-sun ahead. So, I knew what I might have to do… but I didn’t have any idea what I was walking into. I had 2 minutes with her coherent, and all she said was “I’m so glad you’re here honey”. Honey. That could have meant anyone. Just before that she thought I was Jen D, a friend of my step-brothers and mine that died years ago.So what did she know? I don’t know.

I took care of her for the week that she died at home. I played RN (like I knew what I was doing) but like I said, when the shit hits the fan I am the one to step up to the plate. We had round the clock care, but they sent CNA’s or HCA’s and they were all very young. One of them, it was her first day working in homecare and she was a bit shell-shocked working with a patient who was choosing to die at home. And that’s what was going on. Watching the deterioration is difficult, and I swore to myself I would never do it again, but here I was. These girls (other than one) needed support and I was it. Besides, they weren’t allowed to administer drugs and at this point she was on morphine every 4-6 hours to allow her to pass peacefully.

I detached immediately. I had to. I treated her like a patient. I slept intermittently. 4 hrs here and there. Drugging and bathing and changing briefs. Talking to her. Brushing her hair, making sure she was bathed and looking good. I was trying to keep her dignity and isolate my dad and her son from seeing her as anything other than the woman that she had alway been. A lady. It didn’t take long though. That last night, the girl that came on had just worked another shift, so this would make it a double for her. She was the one who had just started, and was having trouble with it all anyway. I said, “get some rest on the couch. I won’t tell anyone”, besides I knew this was the last 24hrs and I wouldn’t be sleeping anyway. You see, I talked to the RN’s from Hospice privately, asked for the signs… blood pressure dropping, heart rate increasing, breathing changes, and eventually the extremities going cold.

That last dose of morphine at around 3 am her feet were cold. I decided not to wake my dad. Why make him suffer more. I caught an hour’s sleep then was woken by this girl,”Come upstairs. Your dad thinks she’s not breathing.” I knelt down by her bedside. My dad said,” I touched her arm and it was cold, just cold. I don’t think she’s breathing.” I listened. I put my hand her chest… barely a thing, then a breath. “She’s still breathing.” I looked at the second hand on my watch… 20, 30, 40. I took her pulse. Nothing. She was gone. Time of death 4:40. She literally took her last breath with me. I had held things in for so long. So fucking tightly you can’t even believe, then, the moment arrived. My dad left. The girl left, and I grabbed onto her and couldn’t let go. Her body was still warm, but she had left. Her cheeks were sunken in. Her pallor was pale grey, obviously a shell, a shell that housed a soul. A dead thing, where less than a minute ago was a woman I loved.

It’s honorable for me to think that she would want me to be the one to be there. To take her last breath. To tell the others she was in fact gone. But I am traumatized by it now I think. I’m not the same. It took its toll on me. I still  haven’t had the chance to morn her death. My son needed me after me being gone for 3 weeks so I took a flight home right after the service and immediately got the flu when I got home.