I am still here

Wow..so much time has past since I last blogged. Many of them not good. First and foremost, my mother passed away on July 10th, 2010 in Lafayette, Indiana. She had fallen on July 2nd. Originally they thought that she had broken her hip. It turned out to be her femur. Although I did NOT want her to, she elected to have surgery to fix it. They gave her an epidural because they felt she couldn't handle the anesthetic. Turns out she couldn't handle the epidural either. She had a heart attack and stroke in recovery and never came back. My sister called me on the fourth of July, my oldest sons birthday, to tell me she was not recovering as they had hoped. I flew out on the sixth and was there by one in the afternoon. I sat by her side the whole week. On Friday the doctor said she was failing and needed to be ventilated. My sister, the poa, looked at the doctor and said "I can't deal with this..do what Carla tells you to do," and walked away from us leaving me standing there alone. I had to decide whether or not to ventilate my mother or let her die. I decided to comply with the living will she had after the doctor explained to me that the ventilator would more than likely cause her lungs to perforate...or have a hole popped in them is a easier to understand term. That would cause them to deflate, potentially hemorrhage etc...It seemed there really was no choice to make. Twenty four hours later, my beloved Mommy was dead. I sat and held her hand for the longest time. She got so cold, so fast. I washed her body, put the lavender and chamomile lotion on that I had been massaging her with all week. Brushed her hair, washed her mouth...did everything I thought she needed. My eyes were dry while I did this..I just did not want any nurse touching my mother with impersonal hands. She was not a dead body to me..she was my mom. When they didn't want me to walk her to the morgue I lost it. It wasn't that I wanted to see her slid into a body bag and into a compartment. I just didn't want her to journey alone through the hallways of the hospital. It seemed to be the last rite of passage for her within the walls of the hospital and I didn't want her to be alone while she went. But the hospital and my own tears prevented me.

I am hoping to blog about my mom's funeral and what happened her on my "ponderings." It is something that we all must deal with...and not a day goes by that I don't think about her and if I did the right thing. It doesn't help that my sister and father ask me if "Mom was ready to die." Hopefully if I share here, it can help someone else or at the very least bring some sense of peace....