I know, that's an ominous update title and a weird ending on the title too. To explain now for those that know about what has been happening to my mother and her battle with cirrhosis of the liver.
Saturday, at exactly 4:16 pm, Central Standard Time *US, my mother took her last breath here in her and my father's home with her loved ones around her. It was difficult and definitely the most painful and awful thing I have ever endured and I am only glad that by the time it had happened, she was under the influence of heavy/powerful, liquid pain medication (Hydromorphone aka Dilaudid or synthetic Morphine) and had been unresponsive once the pain killers were administered and she remained unconscious for about 14 hours and only required three additional dosages of that powerful pain killer. It sucked because when she was transferred to their home from the hospice center so she could die at home, she had already been robbed of enough of her strength to speak at all. I should note here that she refused food and basically weakened herself to the point that she was admitted to hospice and then transferred home only after four days there and arrived here on this last Wednesday at around 2 pm in the afternoon. Basically she had given up before she was even in hospice. She had refused any real amounts of food and liquid for weeks and I did remain positive and upbeat but I think I already knew that she was refusing because of all the other health issues she had that were not involved with the cirrhosis of the liver issue. She also had rheumatoid arthritis that she has had since she was a very little girl and it only progressed throughout her life to a very serious degree. About three years ago, her spinal column had been completely "compromised." By that I mean that all cartilage had been eroded away completely and it had caused her to shrink in height by a full four inches/102 millimeters and was a major reason that it was likely she would be fully wheelchair dependent in about a year or two. She did not want that because my father is ten years older than she was and he's in his very late 70's. She also had fibromyalgia and costochondritis both of which are also bone and connective tissue pain diseases/disorders. So she would have been severely immobilized and already for years had her mobility severely impacted to where she had began using a cane when out shopping or other errands for about six years and a walker for the last year of her life most of the time of that year.
So, yeah I guess she saw that future and this issue with the cirrhosis came along and she figured that it was just better to "go out" before she became what she felt would be a burden on my father, brother and I. I completely disagree with her assessment and thought process and watching her deny food until she was far too weak to survive a liver transplant after she was stabilized enough to begin regaining strength through food and physical therapy. She would NEVER have been considered a burden by any one of us in my immediate family and my "other family" consisting of my group of best friends and musicians that all also loved her and she loved all of them as I've mentioned before. In the back of my head though as I said, weeks ago, I think I already knew this would be the eventual outcome.
This as I explained in another update about this a few posts ago here earlier on my page is a really bad time of year for me mentally due to other traumas throughout the years during this (from the beginning of November to the middle or end of February) timespan every year. This also was very much another reason that has magnified my sadness during the holiday season by about 5 billion percent that it already was. Also, yesterday on Sunday, it was her birthday and she would have been 68 years old. While she did not die on her birthday, it was the afternoon on the day before (Saturday) and it's still so close to the actual day that it hurts that much more anyway than it would if it were about a month or more out from this time of the year but really, only by like .ooooooo1 percent honestly so in that regard, it wouldn't have changed at all as far as my disdain for this time of year.
So as I said, when she got to her and my father's home this last Wednesday, she could no longer talk and she only took pill medications for the first dose of that afternoon and then the rest of that day and on Friday she started to just spit the pills out after refusing to intake any water to swallow the pills and wouldn't take any of the water (I suspect) to speed up her dying process. It would have definitely done her in as it only takes about three days to die from no water intake causing dehydration and the painful effects that denying yourself water brings with it. So on Friday, the hospice nurse came over to assess my mother because she had been fighting the pills into that day and so around when the nurse arrived at around 9 am that morning, she assessed my mother and said we were "well past pills at this point." She gave my mother no more than a week to live and administered the first dose of Hydromorphone at 10ml a dose. She had three more throughout that day and night with the last one on Friday given at around 11:30 at night. She had gone fully unconscious and had finally stopped moaning in pain at a very loud volume and she was slowly over the course of Friday and into Saturday morning having her lungs fill up with excess mucus and would also slightly choke on any saliva that ran down her throat, We elevated her head in her hospital bed that they brought to us before bringing her home (on that Wednesday that just passed) with the mechanized reclining/declining part of the bed. It had little effect and the night before and well into Saturday, as I had stated before, I started to wonder and obsess over whether or not she was just breathing irregularly due to the high amount of very potent pain medication that was only for her comfort until passing away so there was as little to no pain as possible. So after she had stopped moaning in pain out loud on Friday after receiving the liquid pain killer it had evolved into another nightmarish and sanity breaking noise of that gurgling and gasping I've already described. I am sure this will be a thing that I am forced revisit in my nightmares for years and years to come.
The last look she gave my father and I on Friday before losing consciousness was one that seemed to be of utter disappointment in my father and I for not realizing that she wanted the liquid pain killer for it just to be over with. So, then shortly after the nurse got there and administered it on that day, she slipped into that unconscious state due to the drug and her overall physical weakness/fatigue at that point. So that is what happened up until around 1:40 pm on that Saturday afternoon when I gave her one more dose of the liquid pain killer since she hadn't woken up once since that first dose on Friday and the other two with the last dose that night at 11:30(ish) pm and my father and I were both shocked that it was that long in between that first Friday dosage and the one I gave her on Saturday. I only gave her that last dose on Saturday afternoon because I didn't know if she would be in pain again so I figured I'd just put her on another normally prescribed dosage of the medication as it was to be given every two hours as needed but as I said, she hadn't had one until 1:40 pm (approximately) on that Saturday since the last one on Friday night at 11:30 pm. So that was a full 14 hours and a few minutes in between those last two doses and when I gave her that, the gasping noises stopped happening but the gurgling noise continued. Then at 4:16 that same day (Saturday) she finally passed away. She just stopped breathing and we assume it was the dehydration from no water intake as well as her overall weakness due to not eating anything of actual substance nutrition wise for over a few weeks (just the bare minimum to appease my father, brother and I) but she did not start refusing water until she got home on Wednesday afternoon when she stopped taking the pill form medications after the first dosage of them when she arrived home. That cemented the idea in my mind that she was shooting for death by lack of water and as I said I think it was that and most likely her liver finally shut down completely. The hospice nurse that came to call the time of death for the county coroner and then help make the funeral home pick up arrangements for that Saturday afternoon/early evening (by the time the nurse and then the funeral home people finally got to my parents home).
As I have said in other updates before, she was also one of my best friends that would hang out and drink with my friends, go to concerts with us and enjoyed all the same contemporary music I, my brother and friends liked. Her favorites were bands (just to name a few) like The Smashing Pumpkins, Run The Jewels, Grimes, Jonathan Bree, The Chromatics and Mastodon. That list of bands she liked AND had seen with my friends and myself (sometimes as I said, also my brother) live could go on for a lengthy amount of text if I typed out every band and concert she'd been to. It was less than my overall number of live shows, but man did she have a fucking ton of shows "under her belt" so to speak. She was amazing. I will miss her immensely for the rest of my life and there was a massive tearing out of a big chunk of my soul and my emotional "heart" as well and the pain has been just been flowing out of the hole inside of my emotions, heart and soul that appeared the moment she took her last breath. As I stated, she was heavily under the influence of that Hydromorphone so I do not think she felt any pain after the amount of doses stopped her moaning out loud on Friday. I also believe that even though she was super weak and fatigued if she had been choking on excess saliva and mucus building up in her lungs she still would have thrashed around even a little bit as that is a very painful and distressing way to die, even if you aren't conscious for it. But I believe her breathing was definitely labored to the point where near the very end, her breaths were so shallow and infrequent that her oxygen intake and retention levels were dropping rapidly and that lasted for the better part of the last three hours of her life.
I know I've said this before too but she was the best member (out of the four of us) in my immediate family. She did not deserve to die the way that she did because of cirrhosis of the liver. I also really cannot blame her or be too upset about her denying herself food and water just to speed up the dying process. Hell, I would have probably done the same if I knew I wouldn't survive a liver transplant and somehow even if I DID, that I would be crippled to the point of being in a wheelchair due to the severe arthritis and other bone and connective tissue disorders she had developed. I know that people are able to live fruitful and abundant lives that are wheelchair bound for any long period of their life and I just believe that she couldn't handle the idea of that. After all, she was a ballet dancer when she was a teenager and in her early twenties. She was even made an offer to be a ballerina in the New York City Ballet as well as to be a dancer/actress in Bernstein and Sondheim's musical of West Side Story in New York as well on Broadway as she was also a talented dancer in other areas beside ballet and she was a very good actor in all of her high school and college plays that she was involved in and always got major roles in every one of them as she was that good. Bernstein and Sondheim had heard about my mother's prodigious talents in dancing and that she was up for a spot in the New York City Ballet company and when they approached her about being a background dancer in West Side Story, they were told by her about the numerous plays she had been in and they gave her a line reading test to see how convincing she was as a live stage performing actress and they were very impressed. My mother by all accounts was extremely talented in these two areas as well as gymnastics, art (from sketches, charcoals and pastels, watercolors, oils and airbrushing) in the purely visual arena of the artistic world as well as other personal, social qualities that were very, very heartwarming and endearing.
So, thank those of you who have reached out to comment or message me "behind the scenes" or off site somewhere else as well. Your support and love has been greatly needed, appreciated and it truly helped me feel better even if it was only temporary until the last and devastating even occurred. Even though it was mostly temporary as far as my mood went, the support and words of wisdom from many of you (you all know who you are) will stay with me forever and I will cherish and ponder those thoughts for the rest of my days. I hope you are all safe and well and again, thank you for the support and even just taking the time to read these and speak up when it's clearly a very awkward topic and most people don't want to comment for fear of saying something that the grieving person might take out of context and get upset due to not hearing what was said in the way it was intended. So no matter how you supported me, it was truly amazing and loved by myself, my father and brother. They don't know any of you but they did thank you all as well too that have reached out to me. So you really do have the admiration, respect and love of all three of us for all of you. Last time here I promise but, thank you so much, all of you.
I will return sometime soon(ish) and hopefully I can keep up my positivity as I try to heal even though I know that it's going to be tough and that you never truly heal or get over the loss of those you love truly and immensely. It sticks with you for the rest of your days and you can never forget the things that traumatized you during those dark days in your life.
Having said all that only leaves the answer as to why I ended the blog post title with "...sadly, but relieved." That was said for the obvious reason that it is very, very heart breaking that she has passed on and the relief is felt due to the fact that she is no longer suffering in agony or in unconscious silence as she withered away. So I am glad she no longer has to endure that. Also again, I cannot judge her for wanting this to be her "way out" of becoming wheelchair bound and a "burden" in her mind to us as we would all have to pitch in and help her out which would require my brother and I to somehow come over to their place every day and help my father get her up and out of the wheelchair, in and out of bed, helping her get dressed and so many other things that we take for granted when we don't have mobility issues. Again none of the three of us would have cared about having to pitch in and help her out and we would have done so willingly and gladly as she took care of my brother and I up until she got sick and could no longer be around due to her long hospital stays and then her move into hospice right near the end and then finally the speechless and weak state that turned into unconsciousness at their home in the final days of her truly loving, kind, compassionate, charitable and all around fantastic natural attitude that she had her entire life and certainly throughout the entirety of her life once I and then my brother were born. Her nor my father ever neglected, abused or disowned me or my brother and never really got pissed at us over anything ranging from trivial matters (both my brother and I) to the severe end of drug addiction, mental illness and so many other shitty things done over time by one of her sons (yes, it was me). I can truly say she was one of a kind and never gave up on my brother or me whom definitely has been a "lost cause" for a lot of my life off and on but much, much more in the past.
Thank you for reading this and again, I hope you all are well and that your loved ones are safe and well too. Much love and respect to all of you. I'll see you all sometime sooner than later most likely and remember it may rain and become dark as night outside, but it simply cannot rain forever and the sun will eventually break through the gloomy and dark clouds to shine a little light on the things in this world that you can still admire on a truly sincere level and that ease that sadness, rage and angst after losing a very close loved one.
SilentObjectorX
