I lost my nan 23rd December 2019 - I’m finding that I’m struggling to accept that she’s gone and that I will never share anything with her ever again. She has been my best friend from the moment I came into the world, we did everything together, she literally was my bestest friend. She would come to my house every Sunday to have a cup of tea and a catch up, she would be there without fail. She would bake me sweet and savoury goodies all year round. She still worked part time as she was home alone, she worked as a carer for the elderly (at the age of 75!) she truly was amazing. She was always out and about in her little car, but we noticed that she started not going to work and not really going out in the car. She then fell quite ill whilst at home but the doctors didn’t know what was going on, she had upper gastric pain and they turned her away several times diagnosing her with a ‘severely pulled muscle’. After a couple more appointments and some blood tests, she was asked to go to for a CT scan and a colorectal outpatients appointment, which my mum took her to. The consultant who seen her the day after her CT in outpatients disclosed to my mum and my nan that there was nothing on the scan to worry about and she was discharged and to my an appointment  at the doctors to get some acid reflux tablets prescribed. My mum proceeded to take my nan to the doctors the following day to get the tablets, and the doctor (who was meant to go through the CT scan with my nan - when my mum went to the outpatient appointment there was no official radiographer report) the doctor then told them that my nan actually had gastric lymphoma. They put her on the 2week wait pathway in order to see if she would be eligible for chemotherapy, however those 2 weeks she went very downhill very quickly. I work as a surgical nursing associate, and I was visiting her as much as i could at home, to try and help her with tablets and washing and dressing. The doctor would check on her at home too because they were very close, however the one day she visited she was very concerned and called an ambulance. I received this phone call and immediately left work and went to pick up my mum so we could meet her at the hospital. She was admitted to the ward on the Friday night, and by Sunday evening we had a phone call saying she wasn’t doing very well. We all rushed to the hospital but the most difficult thing was that she was experiencing really bad delirium so she wasn’t herself at all and it was absolutely heartbreaking to see her the way she was. I remember tellling her i loved her and she told me she loved me too, and that was the last conversation i had with her...

The consultants had a chat with us and were saying that they think if she deteriorated further they would consider taking her to Dept of Critical Care and intubate her to give her lungs a rest so they can treat the lymphoma (because they believed that at the time she was treatable). Sunday night we had another phone call saying she had been intubated and is now in DCC, my heart shattered, and as a someone of the nursing profession i had a really bad feeling in my tummy about the forth coming weeks. I visited her the following day and sat by her bedside for 10 hours, holding her hand, talking, singing, crying just longing for her to get better and improve - i did this for weeks. And during each visit we had an update and every day was just worse and worse news, her kidneys eventually gave up and was on a intense form of dialysis to help, she went for 2 uteric stents which failed. Each time she had another procedure or test i was longing for it to work, but never did. As we approached closer to Christmas (which was her absolute most favourite time of the year) I could just not see the light at the end of the tunnel anymore. We were then told that her lung was collapsing and her heart was beginning to fail. We had the conversation of “are we doing her more harm than good” and decided for no more interventional treatment and to keep her comfortable and to extubate her and let her pass away when the time came. I sat by that bedside every day all day without fail and to see my nan in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of her neck for dialysis and cannula every where, with tubes down her throat and a machine doing the breathing, i just cannot escape those thoughts. I visitied her on dec 22nd and left once visiting times were over, however at around midnight we had a phone call saying they weren’t sure whether she would make it through the night, I immediately got dressed and went to sit with her all by myself, as no one else in the family felt brave enough to ultimately watch her go. I sat there until 4:30 in the morning holding her hand watching her gasp for breath - I couldn’t even talk to her because she was sedated which broke me. The doctors came over and said ‘she’s actually picked up a bit and we think you could probably go home’. I leant over her and kissed her forehead, i held her hand and whispered ‘ i love you so so much and you will always be my best friend, but if you feel like you’ve had enough then you can let go”. I told them to ring if anything changes and then drove home. 7 in the morning we get a phone call saying we think she’s close to the end if you want to come in you need to come now, so i jumped out of bed and chucked some clothes on, before I could even put my shoes on they rang again and said “I’m so sorry but she’s gone”...

my entire body just melted, i couldnt stand up, I couldn’t breathe, i was in shock and didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought to myself she didn’t want me there when she went, as a nurse i am a firm believer that people choose when they want to go, and i think she waited for me to go home.

5 months on and i cannot cope with the thought of her not being here, i wanted to share my engagement, my wedding, my first house, first child...everything with her. She was that type of nan who would be by my side throughout everything. My heart breaks every time i think about her not being by my side for any of those things and i dont know how to handle this constant emptiness feeling i get 24/7. I cry almost every day over missing her, and i often sit by her grave side for hours just to feel close to her. I cannot believe that she is no longer here and I just really need help to learn how to cope with this.

Im so sorry that this is so long but i really wanted to get everything out because this is really the first time I’ve really in depth spoken about it since it happened.