Hello everyone, I've been lurking here the last couple weeks and found some comfort but still very much in pain.
My mom passed unexpectedly Dec.26, 2017. It is hard to know where to begin without this going on for pages and pages. I'm going to do my best to make this as short as possible.
My mom was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2015, she had some surgeries and began chemo and was seeming to respond well. I visited as often as I could and felt better knowing my dad was with her so she wasn't alone. The problem for me started near the end of 2015, what it boils down to is one of my three dogs got cancer and we were told he only had about six months to live. I didn't want to leave him alone and go see my mom, worried that he would die while I was gone. So I didn't visit her and comforted myself by telling myself that at least my two daughters were seeing her with their children and I knew she loved seeing the grandchildren. When my dog was put down in July 2016, I was just so tired all the time I just couldn't get out to see her and I felt like such a jerk because I felt like I put the dog before my mother. But, a part of me felt like I was also depressed about the realization that my mom was sick and I was going to be losing her sooner than I thought I would. The end of 2016 I lost one of my other dogs to cancer completely unexpectedly. So, more sadness and depression but I felt a little better knowing that I would see my mom for the holidays. My parents always come to my house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had a good time and I'm glad I saw her.
January of 2017 was the last time I went to visit her at her house. It kills me knowing I let so much time pass without seeing her all because of my dogs. I also didn't go to see her in the summer like I was supposed to because my grandmother who lives with them had c-diff which I understand as a bacterial infection in the bowels and I didn't want to be exposed because my oldest daughter had a new born baby that I was around and didn't want to possibly expose him even though the possibility was probably slim.
So, anyway, my younger daughter made plans to bring my mom to her house and my older daughter and me along with the grandchildren would all get together. The plans fell through because my mom's white blood cell count went down and she couldn't be around too many people. We rescheduled but it happened again. Now we were into November and we didn't go see her for fear of possibly making her sick in case we were carrying anything and we wanted her healthy for the Thanksgiving and Christmas which she was looking forward to. Unfortunately she got a virus anyway and was sick for Thanksgiving and then Christmas. My heart broke for her. She was in the hospital Christmas night. The next day my dad told me she was resting and on pain meds and they were going to run some tests to see exactly what she had. I did 't call her because she was asleep from the meds and needed her rest. We were waiting for the results to see how long she'd be there before we would either go to see her there or hopefully she'd be home and we'd see her then. Problem is, the routine, low risk test they were supposed to perform to take some fluid from her lungs was botched and she bled into her lung and died.
Now I'm left with extreme guilt, sadness, and my entire body hurts. I called her every Monday and my dad told me that she always looked forward to my calls. Sometimes I'd call a few more times during the week but the calls seemed to make her very tired so the weeks she had chemo I'd only call on that Monday. This sounds nice that I gave her something to look forward to but I feel like 'big deal' I called my mom. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE MORE!! What is wrong with me? I should have said more sentimental things, told her more how much she meant to me. Now it's too late. I can't go back and fix the past. And what's hard now is it's been a couple weeks, the memorial service was a couple days ago and anytime I feel like laughing or smiling or doing anything I feel guilty. I feel like I have no right to feel anything but sadness, remorse, guilt and loss.
I don't know what to feel right now. I know somewhere in my brain I'm trying to punish myself for not being there the way I should have as if that is going to make things better but I honestly don't feel like I deserve to feel anything but sadness and guilt. I can feel a part of me trying to take a break from the stress of it all by thinking about doing some of the things I enjoy but I feel myself quickly shut it down and bring myself back to the remorse and sadness.
I'm sorry, this ended up a lot longer than I intended. Even if no one reads the whole thing it still felt a bit cathartic to just get it all out. So thank you for a place to do that and thank you to any who were actually able to hang in there and read this.