Losing My Mum
August was a very intense month for my family. In early August I got a phone call from my brother Mike to say that mum was up at the hospital, waiting to be admitted and she was going to have surgery the next day to have her gall bladder removed. I had spoken to mum on Sunday and she had complained that she had been having chest and stomach pains the last few days. I had encouraged her to see a doctor and call and ambulance if necessary. It sounded like she was going to do it "maybe latter in the week". The pains must have gotten pretty intense as she had made a doctors appointment for the Monday night and Mike had taken her. In the meantime she had run her U3A Current Affairs class on Monday, been to her 500 Card Group Wednesday morning and then driven herself up to hospital in the afternoon after the doctor had rung and told her that she needed to get herself up to the Emergency Department.
Mum had her surgery Thursday afternoon, but there were complications, she had pancreatitis, also her kidneys were not working so mum ended up in ICU. She was transferred from Casey Hospital to Monash Hospital on Friday night, and after a phone call from my brothers on Saturday morning I decided I would head down to Melbourne that afternoon.
I arrived Sunday to the hospital, mum was hooked up to various machines, which she was not happy about, including being on temporary dialysis. Mum has had problems with her kidneys for a number of years, so it seems her internal organs were not working as they should be, the surgery was probably too much for them. Mum was alert and issuing all sorts of instructions as we came to visit- like reporting her U3A class numbers, picking a cauliflower from her garden and taking it over to Mike and Leeanne. Letting us know who we needed to tell that she was in hospital and so forth. She struggled to talk at times so then was writing messages down in a notebook. She was certainly very with it.
Mum was very clear, and had been for years that she did not want to be kept alive on machines. Her mum, had a stroke in her early 70's that left her pretty much in a vegetable state in a nursing home for about 5 years where she could not talk, sit up, feed herself, could only lie there, so this was her greatest fear. She had also made it very clear to the medical staff that she did not want to be kept alive on machines either.
My brothers and I all got to spend time with mum, her daughters in laws and some of her grandchildren were also able to visit. On the Monday mum got very distressed about being in ICU and with all the procedures that needed to be done- their job was to keep her alive. So later that afternoon mum after a discussion with the medical staff and my brother Mike and I that she would go down the Palliative Care route, be taken of the machines and transferred to the Palliative Care House that was on the hospital grounds. We were blessed, it all happened quickly, mum was taken off the machines, given painkillers, the Palliative Care doctors were able to come by that afternoon, not long after our discussion, a bed was available, so later that night mum was transferred by ambulance (out the hospital and 200 metres down the road) via ambulance. I was able to go with her and spent the night there.
Mum was pretty exhausted when we arrived, she was settled into her room and fell asleep for an hour or so. When she woke up, I was just sitting down the end of the room, I could see her looking around at her new surroundings, her reaction when she saw me was "Damm! That's bad luck, I am still her, I thought I had died!" She was ready to go.
On Tuesday mum was sleeping quite a bit, she was on a 24 hour pump of medication. She was awake a bit when family came to visit, and was alert when the Bishop from our church came to visit her and read messages he had gotten from members of the congregation. Mum loved that. He gave her a blessing before he left.
I had been staying out at mum's in Berwick and had been catching the train in as the hospital was just a short walk from Clayton Hospital. I was on my way in when I got a phone call from Mike to say the staff had rung to say that they had increased mum's pain medication that morning as he had seemed to be in a bit more pain. The end was not far away. My niece Natalie was there with her mum ( my sister in law) Leeanne, so they sat for a while. Arlene ( another sister in law) came for a while, then it was just me for a while. I had brought mum's CD player in with some of her music and had that playing for her, the sun was shining, and the view of the garden was nice, mum was just sleeping. It was very peaceful. My brother Gary arrived and not long after that we noticed her breathing was getting more laboured, the nurse told us she didn't think that mum would be there for much longer. Sure enough about 30 minutes later mum peacefully passed away, with Gary and I sitting by her side. It was quite a special moment to have that privilege of being by your mothers side as she quietly slipped away.
Gary and I rang our brothers and Bindi, and our families to let them know. This had all happened within a week. Her children had a chance to gather and say goodbye, mum was independent and with it till the end. We felt blessed.
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