I don’t even know why I am writing here, I guess I feel quite alone in what has happened recently. 

My mum who was only 61 was diagnosed with bowel cancer on Monday 25 March 2024. The doctors weren’t too worried as it hadn’t spread and they had a plan for a stoma bag operation, then radiotherapy and chemotherapy then another operation to remove the tumour. We were looking at 6 month treatment plan. On the Friday of the same week we found out she had cancer, she was in a lot of pain so they moved the stoma operation earlier. She was recovering over the Easter weekend and we saw her but then received a call Easter Sunday (31 March 2024) 4am saying she had become very unwell and they didn’t know what was wrong and she had to be rushed to theatre. We rushed to the hospital, she made that 5 hour emergency operation and was put into a medically induced coma in ICU where they said she could be for a week but her condition deteriorated within hours and she passed away at 4pm on the Sunday afternoon. She had gone into septic shock because of the stoma operation and another complication from the surgery had given her dead bowel.

its been 16 days since she passed and im part in denial and part in overwhelming grief and shock as she passed within a week of us even finding out she had cancer and not even directly from the cancer but rather from sepsis from the operation. I can’t get my head around what has happened and how the most vibrant, kindest, sweetest person I ever knew won’t be here to talk to anymore. I guess life feels like it has no direction anymore and everyone I know is devastated and shocked by the loss of my mum but people are already getting on with life whereas ours has just stopped. 

my mum had such a difficult life that I cannot believe she was taken in this way after a lifetime of overcoming adversity. 

I guess I’m not looking for any answers, just finding a place to share this devastating sequence of events that I wish I had seen coming. I think back and wish I had spotted the sepsis myself even though the hospital didn’t spot it. I wonder if I had spent more time with her on the Saturday if I could have noticed and reported it and if she would still be here now. I’m wondering what my stages of grief will be and if it’s true that you’ll never be the same person again or happy again after something like this happens.