Mom’s Last Week

Mom arrived around noon to the room she would live in until she died. She knew the facility, although this was a new room. She expressed appreciation for the photos and flowers I had decorated it with. She thanked the two young men who had transported her by ambulance from the hospital.  She was weak, but knew how to be polite.  It was Friday, September 21.

Her arrival marked the beginning of the end. An end that came nine days later.

Where Would Mom Be When She Died?

My mother died September 30th, two weeks after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. This was almost seven months from her first medical emergency in the spring, when on March 10th, dad rushed mom to the hospital. When they arrived, she was unresponsive. The medical folks revived her. The note I jotted down simply said: “pneumonia?”

That night was the beginning of many months during which mom faced a cascading waterfall of medical issues and curveballs, from surgeries delayed (low blood count) to surgeries accelerated (mom was suddenly a “trauma case”).

32-Days

I didn’t know when I blogged on August 28^th that my mom would live for only 32 more days.

We didn’t know that until September 30^th.

In the span of those 32-days, we went from expecting her to be discharged from rehab at the end of September, to suddenly being told she had a fast-growing, aggressive cancer. Get her home and comfortable, we were advised, and admitted into hospice.

It was two weeks and one day between her cancer diagnosis and her death.  The sudden flip in her story arc, and the speed with which the ending arrived, catapulted our world into a surreal state. The walls of the “real world” quickly got shut out and a single-minded focus grabbed hold.