two months later...

So my Mom has died. It's December 18, 2011. Almost 2 months since my life has changed completely. After long discussions and figuring out the right route for long term decisions, Meredith and I have have taken over my mothers house. With my other siblings being out of state, the economy being so bad and me renting an apartment, the best way to go was to do something with this house.

I did.

As soon as I got the green light to take over the house I started the next day. In five weeks I managed with the help of Meredith and her father to paint the whole interior of this house, rip up carpets, get the hardwood floors done, get a new kitchen floor, remodel and renew this cape house. I am satisfied with the way this house has turned out. We just moved in yesterday and when i sat down on the couch this morning to drink my coffee- I never felt such self gratification. It's a bittersweet feeling.

Some days I am numb to what my life has become. Other days I am so open and exposed that I could cry at the drop of a dime. I don't really go long without speaking to someone who has nothing but great things to say about my mother, as much as I like to hear it, it's almost painful because I start to get angry about how I can't experience life with her anymore. I'm 30 years old and I don't have parents. But, I have Justin, Chris and Heather. We have a bond that will never be broken. Try me.

I am excited to start this chapter in my life with Meredith. We have a house now. We're getting married in May. I also am excited that I feel pretty untouchable as well. I feel like, once you've experienced something so traumatizing as I have, everyone else can go fuck themselves if they have nothing to offer you except bullshit. Im not a time waster anymore. I need to get shit done. I need to look out for myself and for the people who I love and who are there for me.

Life is still moving but I'm not going to just stand there and let it carry me. I'm going to move with it, I'm going to get ahead of it.

The Last Eight Days

The last almost three weeks of my life have been an inconsolable mess. A situation that even I, would never wish upon my worst enemy. Day after day replaying in my head what exactly happened and how I could have controlled any moment that lead to the next. I faced, six days after my 30th birthday, the moment that mostly every person dreads. My mother died. 

Day 1

Wednesday October 12, 2011. 

Meredith and I arrived at my Mom's house about 5:30am tired but optimistic. We were there to pick her up to bring her to the hospital for a pretty common surgery these days. And with the technology thats available to us, I wasn't as worried as I maybe should have been. I felt off, but anyone who has to have a relative or someone close in your life go in for an open heart procedure is generally nerve wrenching. My mother had to have a valve replacement. What was explained to me was that it was going to be a five or so hour procedure then off to the SICU for recovery. Simple right? No.

After getting to BPT Hospital Meredith and I walked with my Mom to Pre-Op waiting. My mother was called in and we waited for her to get settled before she went into the OR. We were met by my mothers best friend Cathy in the waiting room. We all sat down and we nervously spoke to one another and I started fiddling with my phone taking an early morning photo shoot with Meredith. The waiting room was freezing cold. About a half hour later one of the nurses called us in to say bye to my Mom before she went in to the operating room.

There was my shining star. Sitting on the bed with her gown on smiling and joking around with the nurse that she better not fall off the OR bed while in surgery. It was a very quick five minutes. I told her i was scared. She told me don't be. I told her I loved her and she started crying. Seeing a parent cry is just awkward anyways, but seeing my mom cry was ridiculously hard considering my mom never cried. Barely ever. That made me more worried. I gave her a kiss and a hug and cried too. I squeezed her hand tight and I said, "I will see you soon." That last thing I heard my mom say was "Let's get this over with."

A Few Hours Later

Mere and I came home and I went right to bed. We both had taken the day from work. I figured I'd sleep my anxiety off and by the time I woke up my mother would be done and I could go up and see her. I went to sleep around 9:00am and woke up a little after noon. I woke up not yet having heard from the hospital soI assumed she was still in surgery. I took a shower. 1pm, 2pm and no call yet. So, I finally called pre-op and asked them what my mothers status was. They told me that she'd be 1 more hour. Ok I said. Mere and I decided we'd head back to the hospital anyways and just wait for her. As soon as we got to the hospital area I got a phone call on my phone from the Cardiologist who performed the surgery. He was hesitant on the phone and he broke it down for me. The conversation went a little something like this on his end.

"We've had a very very difficult time achieving our goals throughout this surgery with your mother. She is still in the OR and they are still working on her. We found more issues than what we expected and we're doing the best we can to keep her with us. Her heart is not looking too good right now and we've attempted weening her off the heart and lung machine but her heart won't keep up, it keeps stopping. I know this is a very anxious time but we will keep you updated."

I immediately started screaming in the car after the phone call ended. I literally ran into the hospital with Mere and went straight to the Pre-Op Waiting room. One of the doctors involved in that surgery came out a little after we got there and he did not look happy and sat down next to me and said "Your mom's anatomy is just not what we expected but we're doing the best we can."

It's like NO ONE could give me any clear answers as to what was happening. Was she dying? Was she going to be ok? I couldn't wrap my fucking head around the fact that I dropped my mom off for a scheduled procedure and now the doctors are telling me that they are doing the best they can. How is this  happening? My mother can't die. She can't. Was I having a horrible nightmare? I started panicking. Meredith called her parents to meet us at the hospital. They came. They sat with us. I cried and was pacing around that waiting room. About 2 hours after initially arriving back to pre-op the cardiologist came out and said. "She's still with us." Lovely, right? He explained to us that my mother's heart had somehow cased itself in extra mussel and hardened tissue and that itself was making it extremely difficult for them to do what was needed to be done. The extra mass had to be slowly removed, but the extra time that it was taking for them to do this was giving my mother less and less of a chance to live. You see, when you go in for any type of surgery where you'll be temporarily supported by a device to keep you alive, you're at high risk. By the time my mother was out of the OR, she had been in there 13 hours. What happened? I'll tell you. She went into what is called Post Cardiology Shock. It's when the heart has too much going on inside, around and all over it that it basically shuts down because it needs to rest. The problem with that? Her heart wouldn't start after they tried 3 times to take her off the machines. Another problem with that? There's an 80 percent mortality rate. 

October 12, 2011 will always be to me, a fucking nightmare. The whole day was anxiety ridden and definitely a nail biter. I couldnt sit still with the thoughts that were going through my head. When my mom finally arrived up to the SICU she was in critical condition. They put her on these machines that kept her heart pumping. She had suffered NO damage of the organs at the time, the only problem was, her heart wouldn't pump by itself. I was able to see her when they got her settled and after all was said and done that day, there she was with her eyes open when I walked in. I cried, sobbed, weeped and told her that I loved her and that I wasn't going to leave her side. I thought I was going to lose her that day. The doctors thought she wasn't going to make it either. I know they didn't. I went home that night terrified.

Day 2

Thursday October 13, 2011. Right back to the hospital in the morning. My sister drove down the night before when things were getting bad. Justin flew in from LA early morning and was already at the hospital when I arrived. We were all awkward, shaken and trying to keep things normal. My mom was doing better. She wasn't really awake this day, but that's because of the pain medication. Christopher was expected to come in that night. All we did was talk and pray and talk to my mom and reassure her things were going to be fine.

Day 3

 Justin and mines birthday. Attempt 1 at getting her off the heart machine. They took her down to the OR to clean her chest out and take a look-Dr. said things were looking good but they didn't want to take her off the machines just yet. They wanted to let her heart rest more. I slept at the hospital this night. It was cold and i slept on two chairs. I played Frank Sinatra on my iPad for about 12 hours all together and I'm sure the nurse who was on was pretty sick of it after four hours. I didn't care. All i cared about that i was in the same room with my mom and that she was doing ok.

Day 4

 Still resting. Today is Sunday. Heart looks good, organs are good, no signs of infection- we're feeling calm and positive that shes going to be ok. Monday would be tomorrow. Monday is the day the DR would try to take her off the machines again and finally close her up. We were hopeful and we prayed. We prayed hard.

Day 5

 Justin had to fly back to LA for work. He wasn't with us monday. He had a great new job that he has just gotten recently and unfortunately he had an obligation. But it was ok, Mom was doing good and everyone was hopeful. He knew we'd keep him updated as hard as it was to leave. Mom was going back to the OR again to get those machines out of her. Again, another tedious process in which my family and I endured. Hours of laying around and just waiting for good news. Hours. Hours. And finally, the DR came out. Not good. He told us they had her off the pumps for a while-her heart was strong and looked good but then it started to fall again. WHY WASN'T IT PUMPING? It was fucking aggravating. We were on a roller coaster of emotion and living on pure nervous energy. No one had eaten right in days, I was barely drinking fluids, what the fuck was going on. Now she's going to Yale for further assistance from more "experienced" doctors for a situation of this magnitude.

Day 6

Here's where it all started to go down hill. Day 5, my mom was brought to Yale New Haven. The night of Day 5, the DR at Yale who was more "experienced" got right down to business. He had an agenda and the end result was to save my moms life. She was still technically critical and there were things that had to get done so we were told. Most importantly was to close her up because he was worried about infection. What he did was he took her off the pumps completely. After about two hours of watching closely over her heart and giving her certain medications to stimulate the heart, her heart was doing fantastic. It pumped great, it looked good, her blood pressure was great and he came back up to us that night of Day 5 very excited that she was going to be ok and we were relieved. It was the first night that we finally felt that everything was going to be ok. Everyone even went home- we put our trust in the doctors and he said that my mom just needs to rest and we could come right back in the morning. Well, Day 6 was the day that at 4am in the morning I get a phone call from the doctor and he's telling me this. 

"The right side of your mothers heart has stopped. With that being said, her lungs have collapsed and now we have her on a respirator and things are taking the turn for the worst. Please call me back"

Christopher and I went to the hospital that morning. It was just him and I now because Heather had to get back to work in MA plus- we had gotten good news previously to that so no one was really worried.Chris and I sat anxiously waiting for the doctor. When he finally came in he was very blunt and to the point. WITH HIS BEST JUDGEMENT he said TAKING HER OFF THE MACHINES THE NIGHT BEFORE SEEMED LIKE THE APPROPRIATE DECISION. Well, obviously it wasn't. BUT, there are consequences of being on those heart machines too long. Especially in my mothers condition. I asked him:

"Is my mother going to die?" 

He said "You're mother has been slowly dying this the operating room on Wed."

I got up and grabbed Christopher in that little consult room and shook him and screamed and cried "oh god, oh god." that's all i could say. The only thing i could say was "oh god." I was now facing the realities of what exactly was going on. We were all devestated. We immediately got back on our phones and called Justin, called Heather. "YOu guys need to come back right now." Justin got the first flight he could back to us. Heather drove back down with her husband Owen. Our family friend Scott had been with us practically the whole time since my mom went in the OR. Here we were. 

Me, Justin, Heather, Chris, Scott, Owen, Meredith. 

My mother in a hospital bed. We all slept in that small consult room together that night taking turns sitting with my mom in her room. No one slept. We barely spoke about it. We all knew.

Day 7

Today is Wednesday. Today my mother has been awake all day. She is now hooked up to every machine possible but the good news is that her lungs regained function after collapsing. Bad news, her kidneys are failing and her liver is failing.  We still maintain hope that she'll make it through this. She is very responsive. The out pouring of support it amazing and the people who came to see my mom while she was in the hospital are truly amazing as well. Today my mom is very alert. We try not to cry around her but my mom isn't stupid. Today my mom's best friend Cathy took a moment with my mother to explain to her what was going on. She had to tell my mother she was dying. And my mom proudly shook her head yes and mouthed, "I know." Today we all spend time with her, all day, very positive, crying, being negative, crying, being positive again, helpless, desperate and wondering, "how the hell did this happen?" Meredith and I decide that we will be the only ones to stay at the hospital that night and everyone else was going to get a hotel room provided by yale about 2 blocks away to shower and clean up and sleep in a real bed. Mere and I took the cot in the consult room. No one wanted to be away from my mom but everyone was slowly failing in their own ways from not taking care of themselves for the past week now. I spent many hours and days with my mom along with my brothers and sister telling her how much we loved her and that she was the most amazing mom and person to have ever lived. We gave her strength to hold on. She saw our faces, she felt us rubbing her hand and kissing her forehead. HER FOUR CHILDREN WERE THERE WITH HER EVERY STEP OF THE WAY HOLDING ON TO HER AND SHE WAS HOLDING ON TO US. But we also let her know that if she had to go, "it was going to be ok. we were going to be ok." As hard as that is, and I can't even describe what that feels like, we had to tell her that she can go. And we did. And, she did.

Day 8

Today is Thursday. Meredith and I were woken up around 5:50am by a nurse who was working the floor. She knocked on our door and i immediately jumped and opened it. She said, "You should come right now, she's not doing well." This was it. I called Heather, they weren't far. I said "come to the hospital right now." She said "Ok". They got there fast. Scott, justin, chris, heather and owen. Meredith and I were in the room with my mom. I called Cathy her best friend and she drove as fast as she possibly could from fairfield to new haven when she got the call from me. My mothers heart failed completely over night. even with the machines. She had no organ function and the only thing keeping her with us at was the machines at this point. There was nothing anyone could do. It was time.

We surrounded her with our presence, our love, our reassurance to her that she'll be ok and we'll be ok. We all cried, held her hand, kissed her face, she looked at us and after we all got to say what we wanted to say, my mother passed away at 6:58am October 20, 2011.

So.

Here I am starting a blog. Just another blogger on the internet expressing their feelings about bullshit. Well, I will blog about things that happen in my life day to day and week to week. I was inspired to start doing this by boredom, and, by my buddy Billy who blogs here as well about his extreme mountain climbing hard core manly life style. He also likes to wear uggs and very tight women's hollister nighty shorts. Just kidding.

I am a hero wannabe, guitar playing, thinks I can sing lesbian who loves my dogs. I am cool, calm and confident. I am also insecure, believe in conspiracy theories and like to run. I love ten speeds, my dogs, my fiance Meredith, hipsters, hanging out in social scenes and being a responsible adult with an immature side.

I think the best thing about getting older is that you realize your parents weren't right about everything and here's where you have to make the change. Make sure you don't make the same mistakes they did and then the cycle goes on. I know that most of you who read this probably won't understand half the things that come out of my brain, but if you do.. thank you.  I will write about post adventurous about living in San Francisco and where I totally went wrong there. I will try to keep you entertained.

Love Always and Fear Nothing,

Sarah