Awakening Through Love

Awakening Through Love

At Peace





Mom passed away last night around 10pm.  I feel peaceful and relieved that she is free.  I created a video to show at the memorial service and if you'd like to watch it...click on the photo above.  Thanks for all of your thoughts, prayers and support!

Sending peace, love and joy!

Self-inflicted punishment


Since I last posted on Friday, Mom has gone downhill quickly.  She sleeps most of the time, can barely swallow or talk and has been in pain.  The Nurse gave me liquid morphine to administer and that has helped.  When the Nurse came yesterday (Monday), she said that it's amazing how much she has deteriorated since Thursday.  She thinks she may only have days left and asked if I wanted her to die here or at hospice.  I told her I didn't care.  Later I asked Mom and she said she wasn't sure.  I've made the decision today (Tuesday) to have her transferred.

On Sunday, my younger brother came over and took care of her all day while my husband, son and one of his friends and I went boating.  It was nice to get away.  I gave him a lot of instructions before leaving for her care.  When we returned, before going inside I went on the back deck where she likes to be and found her with a look of helplessness on her face.  She had the fan blowing directly on her and it had cooled off outside.  She was freezing.  I put socks on her and covered her up.  My brother said she had complained about being in pain quite a bit, so without calling me, he cut a time released morphine pill in half, gave that to her at 1:30pm with two percocets and then gave her the same amounts at 7pm just before we arrived home.  You're not supposed to cut time released medicines in half because the medicine is not time released.  After he left I asked my Mom if he took pretty good care of her and she said yes, but he kept making her eat and that upset her.  She can't eat much because of the tumor in her stomach...no wonder she was in pain.

Anyway, yesterday her sister came over and cried a few times.  She said Mom looks horrible.  Much worse than her mother before she went into the hospital 10 days before she passed from cancer.  After she left, I got a chocolate bar and asked Mom if she'd like some and it's the most animated I've seen her in a while.  So she ate half a bar.

Mom said she has asked God for forgiveness of her sins, particularly for having slept with a man while she was married.  To give a little background...my father told me when I was 16 years old that he didn't think my older brother (the alcoholic) was his son.  I've asked my mother a few times through the years if he was (assuring her that I wouldn't pass judgment if she'd made a mistake) and she always said that he was.  I believe, due to her guilt, that she has allowed him to control her entire life and felt that she deserved whatever happened.  I told her that if that was the worst mistake/sin that she has made, then she's a saint.  It's just very sad!

Finding Humor While Patience is Tested








The last few days have been very difficult.  Because of the trauma of being neglected and abused, my mother has needed constant attention.  Every 10 minutes during the day she needs something…her feet down, more ice chips, a mirror, something to eat, a different pillow, to go to the bathroom (which entails me lifting her, holding her with one arm while pulling down her pants, shifting her body over the porta potty and lowering her),  etc. etc.   My husband and son help when they can, but my husband wrenched his back the first day.

I bought a medical chair/bed that is a godsend.  She slept in it the 2nd night since it fully reclines and is on rollers, with side tables.  Because she is on morphine and her body is very weak,  most of the time she smokes a cigarette, she is unsafe with it, nodding off, but very insistent and stubborn about smoking it.  The third night, she wanted a nicotine patch on, since I told her she can’t smoke while I’m sleeping.  Big Mistake!!  It wired her and she didn’t sleep at all.  My son stayed up with her until 2:30, when my husband woke me and said he heard them on the deck.  I went out and took over.  After getting her to bed, she used the call button three more times.  Once, because she was freezing, once to go to the bathroom and then so that I would put her in the roller chair.  The nurse and case manager came over yesterday and gave me some Ativan to help her sleep.  She is sleeping now…12 hours so far.

I now have her in diapers because she was soiling her clothes.  Her bed sores are getting better and since her feet have been elevated, the swelling in her legs/feet is gone.

My patience was severely tested the last couple of days because of the lack of sleep, her buzzing me constantly (once just to ask me what I was doing! urggg), and the manipulation she employs.  My son asked me if having a baby is this difficult, because if it is, he doesn’t want any kids.  I told him that it wasn’t this difficult!

Yesterday, after my mother used the porta potty on the deck, my dog got a hold of one of her feces and was making a meal out of it, while I’m trying to get her back on the chair.  My mother was totally grossed out and I just laughed!  Then an hour later, I come outside and mom is starting to vomit, so I put a plate under her to get sick on.  She drops her false teeth on it and I get to clean it all up!

I called my brother to see if he could help out some, perhaps one day this weekend and he said he and his wife had plans to clean out her mother’s garage as a late Mother’s Day gift, but he’d see what he could do.  I told him I really need some help, that he needs to step up to the plate, and that all of my plans have gone out the window.  He said if I’m going to get crappy about it…I said calmly that I’m not getting crappy….I just need a little help desperately!

I know that everything changes and that things will get better!