What do I feel about my mom's death?

bubblegumx3 said:

mom dying
It is currently 1 in the morning and I am wide awake at Strong Hospital. On my parents 22nd anniversary in july, my mom was diagnosed with liver cancer. This weekend in september, i find out that the cancer has spread to the lungs and stomach. Today will be the 10th day my mom has refused to eat anything. Doctors tell us it will be any day now. My mom is dying in front of my families' eyes. I am only 20 and my brother just turned 16. we will both have to live without our mom by our side, watching us grow up. My parents were so excited for their retirement coming up, and this murderous disease just came up from no where. we had so much hope in the beginning, getting chemoembolization and treatment, yet the cancer spread. This cancer just ruined my family and I dont even know what i am feeling. i dropped out of college and gave up two internships to be by her side until the very end. but i need help. my family will need help. how will i learn to cope without my mother? everytime I go home, I look around my house and see the impact my mom has made. I look at the pictures on the fridge that she printed, the report card and "congrats on making the deans list" letter that she proudly magnetized, the family pictures, the painting we picked out together for our living room wall. my dad is always at work and my brother is too busy with school and soccer. it was just me and my mom. now, she absolutely refuses to eat and convulses in pain. I am not allowed to sleep at night because she wakes up every hour crying and withering in pain. why is this happening to me

Mdhtnj said:

I know this post is a year
I know this post is a year after and I'm not sure if any of you will get this... But I am 23 and my
Mom died 1 week ago. She was my best friend and we had an amazing friendship and bond that I will never have again. I'm having such a difficult time coping and gathering my feelings... I feel like she's coming back but I know she is gone. If you get this post, how is everyone holding up?

adri016 said:

Hi there, I am dealing with
Hi there, I am dealing with my mom passing in the next few weeks. Just the thought of it makes me so sick. She is the nicest, kindest, most self-less person and I don't know why this has happened to her. My question to you is, how do you even cope with life after? I took time off and quit my job to be with her, and I can't even picture getting another job, spending time with my friends, laughing again... after she is gone. My heart also breaks for my 12 year old bother, who will never have his mom there for all the life's milestones that I was lucky to have her for (I'm 25). I just don't know, how will I even begin to have a normal life again?

missdixie said:

My heart breaks for all of you
My heart breaks for all of you. Thanks for posting your feelings, as it really helped me tonight.
My mother has been battling ovarian cancer for just over two years, and is now in the hospital getting worse and worse.
I honestly thought when I took her in last friday, (at her request), that we would be out by now... Instead, I am terrified that she won't be discharged. She has been nauseous and refusing food for a couple of weeks now. I had her on ensures, but she would only have one or two sips. She would have a craving, which seemed encouraging, but when I would prepare food for her, she would refuse it, sometimes angrily, which sort of made me angry. I want her to live! Why won't she help herself? because she can't. She is in pain. And I feel so helpless. I just turned 37 last week, (she is 68), and had my birthday in the hospital at her bedside. I ordered in flowers and brought a cupcake with a candle, but it was bittersweet. She seemed ok that day, promising to make it up to me. She kept saying she would make the **** birthday up to me. But only two short days later, she is so much sicker. Today she was so drugged up she didn't know me at first, which was terrifying. She is moaning and groaning in pain, and has a lot of anxiety. It both helps and hurts to talk to friends and family. I am all alone, not married, her only child, and she is widowed. So, when I call friends, or her friends, they are in denial, they haven't seen what I've seen, and they simply do not realize the severity of the situation. It is frustrating. And I feel like I should do more - even though she has 24 hour care right now. I went out today and brought her soup and a sandwich, popsicles, etc, and she wouldn't eat a bite. She got mad at me for even suggesting it. NO SOUP! she yelled at me. I read all about "what dying people want" is to be touched. So, I went out and bought some scentless cream and tried to give her a hand / leg massage, "don't touch me!" she yelled. So, I don't know what to do. i simply don't know what to do, but sit there and play words with friends, and feel like a jerk. Again, it really helped me to read all of your posts, because you seem to all be feeling what I am feeling - like nobody gets it. Well, I get it. I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer five years ago, and was with him when he passed. I feel like this is my dad all over again. Who loses two parents to cancer in their 60's? what is that? and it wasn't environmental, because they lived in different countries! so, I find myself asking god, "why me?" a lot. Like, What did I do karmically to deserve this? I also feel like I could be sick a lot - which I hear is common. Like, should I be getting scans? ultrasounds? what if I get cancer? That is a big one for me. So, I am living minute by minute right now, not knowing how long she will be alive. This all sounds very very selfish. I must finish this blog by saying, that like the other post - my mother is my best friend, my biggest supporter, and number one fan. She has always made me feel extremely loved an special. I am going to be beyond lost without her. I feel like I have failed her in so many ways, like not being married, or having children. I don't know what else to say, other than that I still - even after all this - have hope - and I'm praying for a miracle.

adri016 said:

Hi there, I am dealing with
Hi there, I am dealing with my mom passing in the next few weeks. Just the thought of it makes me so sick. She is the nicest, kindest, most self-less person and I don't know why this has happened to her. My question to you is, how do you even cope with life after? I took time off and quit my job to be with her, and I can't even picture getting another job, spending time with my friends, laughing again... after she is gone. My heart also breaks for my 12 year old bother, who will never have his mom there for all the life's milestones that I was lucky to have her for (I'm 25). I just don't know, how will I even begin to have a normal life again?

1NYCGUY said:

Update
Well after a very short battle my Mom passed away just about exactly 48 hours ago. I was so scared. Friday night she was sitting in her bed, laughing and eating dinner. We joked and I continued to fool myself into believing that she would continue to make positive progress. Her only discomfort was from a bed sore that she got in the hospital.

Late Saturday night she complained so much about the pain (bedsore) but took her usual 2 Tylenol and said it felt better. I went to sleep leaving her with the night nurse that I hired to stay in our home in the event that my mom needed anything during the night. This had been a routine for about 2 weeks.

Sunday morning i woke up to find my mom sitting on the edge of her bed. She was complaining about back pain. I was thinking it was more than possible that she had legitimate back pain from laying in one position too long the night before. I also thought it could be her kidneys failing as her urine output started to slow.

She was so severely agitated that I had to give her a lorazapam and an Oxycodone. She hates morphine so we avoided it until there was no other choice.

That combination made her sleep. She was still with us, but hadn't slept well the night before. By Sunday afternoon, she wasn't waking up, although if you asked her questions she would answer yes or no. Hospice nurse came and said, "this is the transition phase". I still doubted her. Mom slept more and more and on Monday night she was pretty much in a coma (I think). On Tuesday morning the hospice nurse came and said, that mom had a fever and wanted to insert a Tylenol suppository. She pointed out that she might pass from the fever breaking. She then turned her on her right side and stated that this might cause her to pass. Pretty much everything she did seemed like it could happen any moment.

It didn't mom held on. I realized a little later that my brother had not told her that he was okay if she didn't want to fight anymore. They were so close and she was so protective of him. I told him he needed to tell her he was going to be okay. I left the room and he spoke to her.

I then went back to her bedside and held her hand. My brother closed his eyes for about 10 minutes. I said a few words of love to my mom and she squeezed my hand. (not a myoclonic reaction, she was aware of what I said and squeezed only when it was appropriate).

A few minutes after that at 1:45 pm. I felt her pulse change, her breathing changed and her color changed. I woke my brother up just in time for him to come hold her hand also. She briefly opened her eyes, then closed them. The congested breathing that we had become accustomed to for the prior 3 days stopped. She was gone.

Tonight is the viewing and tomorrow is the funeral.

I did pretty good on the day she passed. I cried a little but handled the things that needed to be done pretty well. Yesterday we spent time at the funeral home making plans. Oddly the funeral directors all new my mom and brother from annual memorial Christmas "parties" that mom attended as my dad is buried on the grounds of that funeral home.

I never thought I'd see a funeral director cry, but yesterday I watched two of them cry like it was there family.

We spent three hours with them much of it talking about my mother. The planning was pretty quick.

I did well last night.

Today, I am unable to function. I have cried almost non stop since I woke up this morning.

I came to this site as this has been a source of information and comfort over the last several weeks.

So, for anyone who thinks they aren't feeling the right things. Forget that. You will feel everything that you need to and you will do it in your own time. No loss, is as great as losing a parent.We ran so hard for the last month trying to help my mom, hoping, praying, cooking and crying (we are Italian). When my mom passed my first reaction was relief. I felt guilt about that for a few minutes and realized that my greatest fear had come and gone in an instant. My mom wasn't in pain, she is in a better place and so I did sleep that first night and last night. Today it all caught up to me. I wrote my moms obituary and it felt good. Reading it in the paper today I cried more than when I wrote it.

For me, today it became real. I have no idea what happens when I walk into that funeral home but I know I am feeling pain today.

So, let your grief come to you when it is right for you. You will go through all the stages, I thought people were idiots when the told me that after my dad died. 18 years later I still wander between denial, anger and acceptance. This isn't one of those wounds that time heals. It will always be there. Like the scar we all got from falling off our bicycles when we were kids. The horror of the wound is gone but the scar remains forever.

Good luck, breath deep and remember that how you live the rest of your life is a reflection of what your mom meant to you. In time you will find peace and you will remember the good times. Most of all you will remember she was, is and always will be, your MOM.