I lost my mom about two months ago and it's mega-tough to process.
My mom was 79 and generally healthy- she still lived the same life she's always had and she was 110% there mentally.....still sharp as a tack.
Her only real problem was acid reflux- it kept getting worse and worse to the point where she'd spend most of the day in bed.
Of course, we didn't know how bad it was so we didn't intervene...and it literally killed her in the long run.
From laying in bed so much, she got a blood clot in her leg.
No big deal, they treat with blood thinners.
But because her acid reflux was so bad, the blood thinners made her bleed out internally from her esophagus.
She was hours from death when my dad called us and we rushed her to the ER...she was completely unresponsive (but still awake and staring into space).
At the hospital, they took her off blood thinners immediately and focused on stabilizing her for surgery.
They removed the blood clot and fixed the arteries, but by that time there was so much damage the leg couldn't heal....with blood thinners she would have been fine, but she couldn't have them.
So they took the leg.
Then infection took over her chest, and she couldn't eat/drink because of the damage to her windpipe and everything down to the stomach.
It turned out everything was from a huge hernia in her stomach- a simple test could have found it and all of this avoided.
But her health kept going downhill and we lost her in the hospital about 10 days later.
I know every loss is different and there's a million things to deal with.
For me in this instance, it was keeping everyone else around me from falling apart with constant ups and downs each day.
There was no time to process much less grieve, and all the while blaming myself for not checking on her more often and insisting on more testing.
I mean, she literally died from acid reflux- it created the perfect storm that should never happen in the modern world with all our medical technology.
Once she passed, I went from being at the hospital 10 hours a day to nothing....how the heck do you fill that void?
Relatives calling and asking if we need anything, helping my dad get thru it, etc....it was a brand new phase where I didn't have time to focus on me.
It's just super tough to process and I feel for anyone that has to go thru it.
I can't imagine being a young athlete who's being pressured to perform while dealing with all that.
Like I said, every situation is different since there's a lot of ways to die, and each comes with it's own hurdles to deal with.
People just can't fully understand what someone else is going through because even if it happened to you...it's completely different because of the circumstances.
I mean, there's no reason why my mom isn't alive today- everyone basically failed her (doctors, family, etc.) by not doing enough.
The emotions are completely different from someone that died in a car wreck or from cancer.
Not better or worse, mind you...just different.
I have to carry that guilt and some days its BAD....but at the same time I don't want to forget or move past it.
It's just tough to rationalize so many irrational emotions- why didn't I do more?
That's life though.
It did help to write this out anyway though and it's why I did it.
My PSA of the day is to check on your parents more often and don't take their word for it that everything's "fine".
That's how we lose parents.
On a more positive note, my dad was sick a few weeks ago and laying around in bed most of the day.
He complained of back pain around his kidneys, so my wife and I didn't play...we said get in the car or we're calling an ambulance. It was also minor- basically severe dehydration, but his his liver/bowels were shutting down and it would have killed him.
Now he's fine at home after a 4 day stay at the hospital.
But of course, now I feel even worse about my mom because it's what we should have done with her (had we known).
So like I said, be proactive with your parents.....you guys are the "parents" now and you can't take "I'll be okay" as an answer.
Last edited: Jun 21, 2019