I lost my beautiful Mum on 18th February and the pain is unbearable. Since my dad died in 2005 it was just her and me. We lived together, did everything together. She was my whole world, and now she's gone. I feel like my heart has been ripped out.
She had suffered from ill health for 12 years. Firstly her kidneys failed and she ended up on dialysis. Then she developed stenosis in her spine which greatly affected her mobility. Then she had a series of heart attacks and we discovered a year ago that one of her heart valves had narrowed and something needed to be done. She was too high risk for surgery so they wanted to do it during an angiogram with a catheter and balloon. So she went on a waiting list.
Last September I noticed something growing out of her nostril. Thought it was just a wart, but it quadrupled in size within a month. Her GP didn't like the look of it and refered her to a dermatologist and she had it removed 10 days later. He didn't think it was anything to worry about but the biopsy revealed a Merkel cell cancer, which is very rare but very agressive. However, they were happy it was stage 1 and said there was no indication it had spread to surrounding tissues. She had two weeks of radiotherapy in the new year just to make sure it wouldn't grow back.
In the following weeks Mum became very breathless, which we attributed to a combination of her diaysis not removing enough fluid and the narrowed heart valve. She was also sleeping a lot of the time, which we thought was probably a side effect of the radiotherapy.
Then she had the long awaited appointment to fix her heart valve, and it was schedulded for 11th Feb. She didn't get that far. The night before her proceedure she was admitted to hospital with a suspected heart attack. They wanted to do an angiogram but they couldn't do it because her arteries were so furred up it was impossible to insert the catheter. They didn't want to give up and decided to do a CT scan to find a "route" to insert the catheter.
That was on the 14th Feb. The following morning I was with her when the doctors did their morning rounds. What they told us was like being hit by a truck. The scan had showed something they weren't expecting. They said she had advanced cancer of the right lung and because of all her pre-existing conditions, there was nothing they could do. We cried in each others arms. She told the doctors she didn't want to know how long she had left, and I didn't want to know either.
The next two days we tried to be as upbeat as possible and vowed that we would make the most of every day. I promised I would be with her right til the end and we would face it together.
Sunday and Monday her breathing got a lot worse and she was delusional, ocassionally talking rubbish and seeing things that weren't there. She also looked deathly pale. They wanted to drain the fluid off her lungs, and I was hoping that would make her feel more comfortable.
Tuesday Morning I arrived at the hospital at my usual time and was immediately called into a side room. The doctor came in, sat down and took my hand. He said that in the last 15 minutes she had taken a turn for the worse and had passed away.
What hurts the most is that I wasn't there. I promised her I would be there, and I wasn't. That feels like a knife in my heart.
I knew I was going to lose her. I never dreamt it would be THAT quick. I feel absolutely lost. My neighbour has been great and is helping me arrange the funeral etc but going into the empty house and her not being there is unbearable. She was all I had, and now I am alone. How can I rebuild my life when she WAS my life? I never knew anything could hurt like this. I can't see any light at the end of the tunnel, I can't see any end to the pain I'm feeling.
Please tell me that it will get easier. I don't know how I can cope with this.
