Life changes. I understand that. I understand that I can’t stop this change; but some days this change is hard to grasp. There are days when I don’t want to accept the changes I’ve gone through; I don’t want to move on; I don’t want to embrace it; I just don’t want it. I just want things to be the way they were before. I am thankful for all of the words of support and encouragement throughout this all, but I have daily regrets, daily frustrations, and daily waves of emotion. This journey has proven to be one of the most difficult I have taken thus far in my life. I’ve tried so many different methods of coping and dealing with the grief and guilt that I feel on a daily basis. Writing has proven to be a good way to help get some of the thoughts in my head. So, I thought I would try again. I hope this helps get more of the feelings I’ve been keeping inside out, and I hope to from this point forward I can try and focus on more of the positives, more of the happy memories.
I am thankful for the fact that I had such a close connection with my mom that 90% of our last days of conversations were silent: all words were spoken through our eyes. I understood what she was telling me with the look in her eyes. She understood what I was saying back. I can feel that. I am thankful for this. It enabled me to share more information with my mom when I would have otherwise not been able to, as the last couple of days of my mom’s life, she was unable to speak. Now, however, these images haunt my dreams every night. I fall asleep and I see her big, dark, innocent eyes looking at me, with tears in the corner of her eyes. I see her pain as the end came closer. Even though the doctors and nurses told me she wasn’t in pain, I could tell she was, but at this point, I’m unsure if it was physical or emotional pain. When I look back at these “silent conversations,” I wonder if there was something more she was trying to tell me that I missed. After all, I had missed all the signs that she was sick until it was too late. Should I have said more to her? Could I have made her feel better? I was hard trying to verbalize the last words to my mom. What do you say when you know you’re never going to talk to someone again? How do you tell them how much you love them and how much you are thankful for all that they did? How? I think that I was able to tell her more of this during these silent exchanges I was able to share with her. I know most of what she was telling me was that she had lived a happy life and that she was thankful for this, and she felt like her life was complete. Was she just saying this to put me at ease?
The conversations I had with my mom the last several days of her life always bring tears to my eyes. I remember the day the doctor told her it was terminal – she was going to die. I was sitting in a small, uncomfortable room that smelled like nothing – sterile stuff – with her and my dad. This was the first time that we had a silent conversation. I had never had an experience like this before, but it happened that day. My dad broke down. He cried. I remember trying to understand how the doctor could say something like what he was saying so simply; with no emotion. Here he was telling us our lives would forever be changed, and he did it without even flinching. Had he told so many people this same thing that he became immune to the feeling, the experience? It kind of makes me sick to remember that. He was a good doctor, don’t get me wrong, but this lack of emotion scared me. How can any human speak about such emotional things without any emotion? Anyways, this was the first time that my mom and I had a silent conversation. While dad was sitting next to me, holding my mom’s hand, and holding my hand crying. Mom told me that I needed to take care of dad. Mom told me that I needed to be strong for him. Mom told me I needed to be strong for everyone. That’s what I did. That mode took over me, and I don’t think I’ve ever switched out of this mode – not even to grieve for myself or find closure in this.
The next few hours kind of went by like a blur. I thank God every day I was there that day. I almost didn’t go. I had done the overnight the night before and staff who was coming in to relieve me was late. I was tired. I just wanted to go home. But I went. Mom was asked to go to the hospital and be admitted for chemo therapy. I called the family. Dad didn’t want to, but I felt like my brother and sister needed to know what was going on. I called my supervisor. I told her that I wasn’t going to be in to work for a few days, and that I may be taking more time off to help and be with my mom. It’s like I was in robot mode. Don’t feel, just do.
I stayed with mom for quite a while that night. I called my boyfriend at the time and asked if he could come. It would have been nice to have had the support while going through this with my mom. He wouldn’t take time off work to stay with me. He wouldn’t even ask. I just continued in robot mode. The next day, we went back to the hospital, mom was going to have chemo. I was scared out of my wits. It was unlike any feeling I had ever had before. I felt helpless. I couldn’t do anything. At this point, I would have done anything to take my mom’s place. She didn’t deserve to be there. She was the best woman I have ever known. I worried that the nurse wasn’t doing things right. I worried that mom wasn’t feeling good. I was worried. I worried myself sick. I threw up four or five times that afternoon. I stayed late that night, because I didn’t want mom to be along until they stopped pumping the chemicals into her body. I wanted to make sure she was comfortable before I left. I cried the entire way home.
The next day, mom was going to go home. She told me this time, “Even if I die tomorrow, I’ve lived a long happy life. You kids and your dad have made me happy. My life has been full.” When we left the hospital, the doctor told us that he was hopeful that the treatment would be successful and he was pleased with how well mom had handled the treatment. After mom had been given her diagnosis, I researched this unknown disease – Ovarian Cancer. The doctor had told us it was stage IV. I looked it up online. What the internet showed me scared the shit out of me. I learned that with the advanced diagnosis my mother was given, she had less than a 30% 5 year survival rate. But, the doctor had given me hope. He said that he was happy with mom’s treatment, she had tolerated it well, and he thought she would do well with treatment.
While talking to dad in the next couple of days, it became apparent mom was going downhill. Eventually, dad decided to take her into the emergency room. I immediately left the training course I was in at work, went home, and tried to ask my boyfriend to bring me to see my mom. He wouldn’t leave work early, but we eventually went to the hospital. What I saw haunts my memories just as much as the vision of my mom’s eyes. Her lips were swollen. She was obviously in pain, discomfort, and dehydrated. Mom was admitted. Again, I remained hopeful, even though there was a steady decline in mom’s condition. I even fought the truth with the hospitals religious department came and offered a prayer, when mom became unable to speak, when her breathing started become more difficult, or when the hospice department visited with us.
I was so angry at the hospice workers. They told us we needed to prepare for the end of mom’s life. They told us that we should strongly consider changing her code to a DNR. They told us we wouldn’t be able to take care of her when she got home. How could they say any of this? If mom stopped breathing, I wanted her to have the chance to be brought back. I didn’t want to consider a DNR! That was stupid! And who the heck were they to say that I couldn’t take care of my mom. These things that angered me so much in that moment, quickly became something that needed to deal with.
Mom’s condition continued to decline. I watched her move from one room to another so she could be monitored closely. They had to move her again to a room closer to the nurse’s station so they could get to her quicker. Then, they made another move. This time to a room that they told me wasn’t ICU, but was one step below this. A place where she would be monitored more closely, have more medical support. By this time, I didn’t want to leave mom alone. That night, I stayed with her in the hospital. This room they had moved her to had a built in bed. I wondered how many other people before me and how many people after me would be in this room in the same situation. Laying there trying to sleep, but unable. Sometime in the middle of that night, the mother I knew for 27 years was gone.
I remember being in a half sleep daze. The nurse and someone else (another nurse, I assume) was next to mom, and they were talking about mom. She had an incontinent bowel movement. They checked and she hadn’t produced any urine. She had become non-responsive. Mom looked at me. The nurse asked for my help, to see if mom would respond to me. I got up from where I was laying down, and I tried talking to mom. She looked at me. Her eyes followed mine. But she couldn’t speak. I think I saw fear in my mom’s eyes at that moment. I think there was a sense of unknown. I wish I could have done more. She took my hand at that time, and just looked at me. Soon, the nurse advised me to call my dad. We would soon have many decisions to make as to whether or not how we wanted to continue with her medical care. And we did. We had to decide whether we wanted a machine to breathe for mom. I remember again, mom looking at me, hooked up to a machine breathing for her; her chest rising and falling with a mechanical rhythm. We had to decide to have a machine take mom’s blood and clean it for her, because her kidneys were in failure.
Eventually, it became clear that mom wasn’t in good health. After many discussions with mom’s doctor, it was decided that we would change mom’s code and take her off of the machines that were doing the work for her body that she wasn’t able to do. It was the most difficult, saddest decision I have ever been a part of thus far in my life. After we decided we were going to let go, and let God take over, we all talked to mom. One by one, we had our time with mom. She opened her eyes a couple of times. Tears were coming out of her eyes. After we all had said our goodbyes, before we had time to tell the doctors to stop the machines, mom joined God in Heaven. To this day, I still think she went on her own, because she got her chance to see us all, and didn’t want to make any of us make the decision to stop the support.
I re-live this ordeal every day – whether it’s in my dreams, in my thoughts, through my regrets, through my grief, through all of the changes I see in me and others, through my happy memories, through my questions of why and how. How do I move on from a situation like this? I know my mom would want me to. I hear all of the suggestions and support from others, but it doesn’t help this go away. It doesn’t stop the dreams. It doesn’t stop the feelings of guilt that occasionally occur. It doesn’t stop the tears when a flash of my mom’s smile take over my memory. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t go away. I don’t think it ever will. Having said this, there has been so many people in my life telling me to embrace the changes; to move on; to see the positives. Trust me, I try. I really do. I want to be happy and I want to remember all of the happy things with my mom. I want to be thankful for 27 amazing years with her. I try.
I have concluded that one of the only ways that I can do this, that I can move on, is to really embrace the feelings and feel them. It may not be a good experience. I may cry once and a while, but I need to do it. I need to feel it all in order to move on. I need to remember to take the time to slow down and enjoy the positives in life as well as feeling this sadness and grief. I need to do this for my closure.
The first positive thing I can think of and be grateful for is my mom’s amazing strength. For the strength she had for us all to work so hard to give us all such great lives. Her memory will live on forever in the hearts of all those she touched (which was many), and for this I am forever grateful.
In Loving Memory – Gone But Never Forgotten
LuAnn Sawatzky
1/21/1954-2/26/2010
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