My mum died 3 years and 4 days after being diagnosed with breast cancer, (3 days ago) a short time after she was first diagnosed the cancer had already spread to her lymph nodes and eventually the liver, lungs, hips, spine etc finishing with her brain.

She was an absolute fighter, she went through rounds and rounds of chemo and radiation but only really showed she was suffering the last 4 months of her life when we found out the cancer had spread to the brain. She was becoming very forgetful, if I could compare it to anything it's almost like she had very severe dementia symptoms. It was so hard for us all to deal with her like that as she was no longer the mum we had all once knew and remembered.

During Sunday morning around 5am we all heard a huge thump, I suddenly awoke and knew mum had fallen/collapsed so I ran through to her bedroom to help. She was just behind the bedroom door so although dad couldn't lift her he managed to move her enough so that I could get inside the room.

Following this are the moments that have really scarred me and what I am struggling with massively. Mum was sitting on the floor in her underwear, helpless, neither she or my dad had the strength to lift her to her feet, so I put my arms around her and lifted her but she couldn't stand, her legs just buckled underneath her, I managed to move her away from the door and placed her back to the floor. At this point we realised there were feces all over the floor and over mum. With help from my partner, mum was cleaned the best we could there and then so that I could lift her onto the commode which was next to the bed. My partner then had to remove her underwear as her bowls were still "active", I never thought I would have to watch my mum in this manor and see her in such a vulnerable state.

Now that mums on the commode she became really unresponsive and couldn't even hold up her own head, soon after this the ambulance arrived and eventually got her to hospital. She died the following morning at 2:45am.

I am of course going through all of the "normal" stages of grief when a loved one passes but I feel that these events have really scarred me, I keep having visions of these moments, I feel guilty and like I should have done better or helped her more with any pain or discomfort. I really dont want those to be the memories I think about most of mum but at the moment that's all that pops into my head.

I guess if anybody could help me talk about this or to suggest anything to help me I would really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Jamie