Why didn't I know she was gone?

[nashreed]

The strange, sad night that Annette passed.... I didn't feel her leave this earth. I felt nothing. 

She had had a severe low blood sugar incident that night (WHY didn't she wake me up???). By the time the paramedics arrived, she was in cardiac arrest, and they could not get her blood sugar up because her veins were "thin, deep and they rolled" (what she always told phlebotomists). I knew it was very, very bad. I was most worried about them having to put in a tube for her to breath- she was not breathing well, and I was worried the chest compressions they were doing would severely hurt her ribs, but they took her in the ambulance and she was alive when I saw her leave the house. I couldn't hear her anymore (she had been snoring after she had fallen out of her wheelchair and landed on her knees, head down toward the floor- that's how I found her when I heard her fall (WHY didn't I wake up sooner???))... but she was alive. It would be another long hospital stay, I thought. I couldn't follow the ambulance (damn, damn COVID), so I waited. 

I got a call from the ambulance soon after telling me they were taking her to the hospital in town she hated, because it was closer. Okay- not ideal, but she was on her way. She was alive still. I waited for a phone call from the hospital she hated. It was sometime around 2am. I waited until almost 4. They never called, and I had to call them. They coldly told me she was gone. 

Her death certificate says she passed at 2:28 from complications from Diabetes, but also lists her being overweight, congestive heart failure, kidney disease, obstructive sleep apnea and her Rheumatoid Arthritis for good measure as contributing factors. WHY did I not feel her leave this earth at 2:28am? Why did she not come to me and say goodbye then? Why did I still have hope for a good outcome? Did I not have enough of a connection with her, even though we loved each other so much? It just really bothers me still. I just don't know why I didn't know. I have read so many anecdotes about loved ones feeling losses in their chest or seeing something that let them know. 

There are still so many questions I will always wonder about. It's always going to bother me. It just makes it all the more sadder. 

James

[Gwenivere]

5 hours ago, nashreed said:

WHY did I not feel her leave this earth at 2:28am?

I always wonder that myself as our bond was so tight.  But I never felt it with others like my parents.  I’ve heard people say they know.  I’ve only had caregivers tell me it was getting close.  They know from breathing patters and other signs.  I was not totally shocked when I got the call the morning after.  Our connection was emotional, not physical.  We did witness their struggle.  We are powerless to alter it.  Then I think what good would have done?  Nothing.  We’re just caught up in how natures plays out. It’s done and over and we go forward.  I don’t even remember the time, only the date. Do you think it would have helped you in-some way?

[nashreed]

Well, I just looked at her death certificate today. I honestly didn't remember the time until I looked. I've just been searching for meaning- trying to understand. I need to send the death certificate to the hospital she was at for two weeks where she almost died. She was discharged to a rehab facility, but she refused to stay there. I would not have been able to visit, but also I think that she knew her time was short. She never would have been able to tell me that she felt it was almost time. I would have freaked out like no one has ever freaked out before. She decided to come home. She just wanted to be with me for that last week. 

When I was finally able to talk to her when she was in the hospital (she was in severe kidney failure apparently, and incoherent), she off-handidly mentioned that she had almost died. We both brushed it off. I couldn't deal with it properly. I just have to know more about that visit. If it wasn't for damn COVID, I would have been there with her day and night, talking to her doctor daily. As it was, I got information in bits and pieces. When she refused to stay at the rehab place, her doctor seriously advised me to keep her there, but she wanted to be home. I couldn't do that to her. I just need more answers to what happened. It's something to do with her and I am so lost without her, without being her caregiver. It's all I have. 

 

 

 

[kayc]

19 hours ago, nashreed said:

complications from Diabetes, but also lists her being overweight, congestive heart failure, kidney disease, obstructive sleep apnea and her Rheumatoid Arthritis for good measure as contributing factors.

ALL related to Diabetes, byproducts of.  I'm so sorry, James, they didn't even reach out to you and call you.  I am so sorry that's how you got the news.  Some of these medical institutions need revamped imo.  No one should have to find out this way.

My sister too, she stopped breathing, she had severe COPD, also can be a byproduct of Diabetes, but she never tried to control it, she had her inhaler, but that's not control or even managing, not really...as told in death.

 

[nashreed]

Annette knew she would not live a long life- that the Diabetes would get her. She was the smartest person ever, and she tried to take care of her health but things happened, bad decisions were made. I feel so responsible for a lot of it. I swear, it's like I'm in purgatory being punished for not taking care of her. My hometown is a ghetto now and I can't even go for a Diet Mountain Dew run without being shaken down for money by a homeless person. Dang it, dude, I'm not too far from homelessness myself. I don't have money to just give away. Thank God Annette didn't have to live here with it the way it is now. Thirty years ago, it was safe. I actually worked overnights at a Shell station here. I go to the same one now and it's scary as hell. There's a liquor store across the street and it's like The Walking Dead with all the bums, meth heads and downtrodden. I would never go out at night here now. 

[Boho-Soul]

38 minutes ago, nashreed said:

My hometown is a ghetto now

That’s so hard to hear 😕 Wish things weren’t like that for you James. Is there any way possible to move somewhere safer and less expensive? Wondering if there’s any place you could move that has low-income housing. They have that in my city. I suppose a move costs money, so probably not.

[nashreed]

Well, I'm living with my Mom and brother, and they're not moving. I feel obligated to at least stay to be with my Mom. She just turned 86. No problems (thankfully) other than some rather annoying hearing loss. This is where I met and fell in love too. For better and mostly worse, it's home.

[kayc]

James, I'm sorry to hear this, but I think everywhere is affected by drugs.  The homelessness is a large side effect, although certainly doesn't account for all of them, there's all kinds of situations to be homeless, I was for a couple of weeks myself when I was 18.  My sister offered her tiny apt. to us, only room to sleep on dinky LR floor.  My famiily pooled together and got us enough $ to put down on an apt. on the bad side of town, but back in those days, it just meant slummy, not dangerous.  It was old but nice.

[V. R.]

On 8/23/2022 at 7:19 PM, nashreed said:

WHY did I not feel her leave this earth at 2:28am? Why did she not come to me and say goodbye then? Why did I still have hope for a good outcome? Did I not have enough of a connection with her, even though we loved each other so much? It just really bothers me still. I just don't know why I didn't know. I have read so many anecdotes

On 8/23/2022 at 7:19 PM, nashreed said:

Why did I still have hope for a good outcome? Did I not have enough of a connection with her, even though we loved each

I don't know how many times I have asked myself the same question. Why didn't I KNOW he was having a heart attack? Where was that BOND, at that particular moment? Who or What blanked my mind and didn't think the worst, when I usually do! Why is it that when you are anxious about a certain symptom someone may have, it always turns out to be nothing at all? Then when you're not particularly worried, the outcome is actually serious? Is there really an evil force out there somewhere, or just a little 'gremlin' behind our shoulder waiting to play dirty tricks on us? Yes ok, I am deeply grateful for all the good things that happen to us during our lives, and yes let's thank God or whoever, but why spoil them? Why take our soulmates away from us so soon, when we have devoted our whole lives to them and now we're left 'lingering', not knowing what to do with ourselves, or who we are? We have been forced against our will to literally go through an 'identity transformation'. If you take off all the petals off a beautiful sunflower, what will happen to it? Will it live? Sorry if I'm going on a bit, I sometimes just need to 'scream'. 

[nashreed]

Don't ever apologize for being long winded, V.R. You can write a novel on here. That's what it's for. I try to articulate all the abstract ideas about death and the afterlife and the future on here, for my own sanity. Nobody in the real world gives a hoot, so this is why we're blessed to have this forum. 

Every morning, I try to wake up before my Mom (when she eats breakfast, she has this super annoying habit of slurping her hot tea). I'm at the table, eating my cereal, and listening for any sounds of her snoring or bed creaking. Her bedroom is right next to the table, and her door is wide open. I have to make sure that I hear something before I leave for my walk. I did hear her stir, so I left. As it was, she overslept (she usually is up by 7). So, every morning I worry that one morning I won't hear her- that she'll be gone. Will I feel it? Will I know something's wrong? Probably not. She sleeps stone still mostly, always in one position. If I think I have no life and nothing now...I can't even fathom what I am when she's gone. If I stop taking my medications, start drinking, start eating too much black licorice.... Is it killing yourself? What really constitutes suicide? Can it be just slow neglect of your health? Knowingly not taking care of yourself? I have no interest in a long life. I'd love to be dead by age 60. What's the point of living? Once my Mom goes, I really have no reason to be here. Unless they start a new show- Love Island: Creepy Mid-Life Crisis Edition- there's no happiness in my future. 

[Sad_Widower]

James (if I may call you this), do you mind if I ask how old your wife was when she passed?

As unlucky as life has been since my wife passed, the ONE thing I can say I am extremely blessed with was to be there, holding my wife's hand, with both our kids bedside, when she passed. It was almost like a movie...except her passing was the last thing I envisioned was going to happen. I would have been equally shocked had she passed in a car accident on the way to the hospital.

A few things:

When my wife passed, she was very lethargic. However, she sat up quickly with a look of shock on her face (which is etched in my memory), and then fell back. All the machines she was hooked up to started making continuous beeps. Doctors and nurses came rushing in. The hallways sounded an alarm (such as a fire alarm) with a strobe light going off outside her room. On the loudspeaker (throughout the entire hospital) "Code Blue in Room 216. Attention: Code Blue in Room 216!"

The kid and I jumped up and left the room to give them space. I just prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed. It was obvious what happened. Eventually, one doctor came to me (he was an ER doctor) and told me he "brought her back" I shook his hand, and will never forget I started thinking about how that evening she I and would be talking about "how you almost died". I was in tears of happiness, then my son put his hand on my shoulder and said "Dad. Please don't' get your hopes up. She's gone."  They then brought us in to a room with a Chaplin and doctor. Another doctor basically told me she is alive, but she is dead. He said the best he can do is keep her alive for  few moments if we wanted to say goodbye (and that she would be in a comatose state". I asked "is she in pain?" He said "Well....she not in comfort"...so essentially Pulled the proverbial plug'...something my wife thought I would NEVER be able to do (we talked about it being  possibility). 

Finally. I want to describe just how close I came to missing this. About five minutes before she passed, I told my family "I'm gonna run home and email the office to let them in I won't be in today." I had keys in hand, and was literally standing with one foot facing the door.  The way my wife looked at me told me...'it's better if I stay with her.."I cannot put in to words how I would have felt had I left and she passed. I think it would have probably killed me. With everything that's happened since her passing, I think that would have just been too much for me. It's really amazing how little split decisions can sometimes literally be life-changing. 

[nashreed]

She was only 49. 

When I woke up to a thud that night, I ran in to the living room (she had her hospital bed in there) and she was in the kitchen, head down on the floor because she had fallen out of her wheelchair. She was snoring. She had had another low blood sugar, but this one was really bad. They had been getting more and more serious- so low, that EMSA had to be called several times. She has tried to eat some Red Vines to bring her sugar up, for some reason I'll never know. There were many other things that would have been better. Why didn't she call for me? 

I truly hope that she slept through it all. When the paramedics got her on a stretcher is when she stopped snoring. Apparently, she stopped breathing, and they couldn't get her sugar up....but she was alive when she left the house. I knew it was bad, but I didn't think she'd die. I knew it would be another hospital stay, another one where I couldn't see her, but I didn't think she wouldn't make it. When I went to see her after she passed, it still didn't seem real. She looked so peaceful. But, she had a tear in her eye. I wiped it away. I hope and pray she wasn't in pain, that she didn't feel them do chest compressions. Who knows if her ribs were broken or what. 

As I lay here, for another lonely night of sleep, I secretly wish to die in my sleep. Sure, I'd be bummed to miss the rest of Big Brother's season, but I don't want to live anymore. It's just pointless without love. I could do it before I knew what love felt like, but now I know that it's a meaningless existence without it. I truly believe in the afterlife. Why are people so gung ho about life here? If you're rich I guess it's great. I have nothing else to live for. 

[KarenK]

I could write a novel about the wretched care my husband received after his cancer diagnosis that contributed greatly to his death....but I won't. Suffice to say it was a huge comedy of errors, but no one was laughing. He had been in two hospitals for a month fighting sepsis along with everything else when he aspirated and was put on life support. My daughter(who was very ill with cancer) and her husband came from Kentucky to join my son and I. His body continued to lose function and many doctors told me he would be in a nursing home in this state indefinitely. I knew he wouldn't want to live that way, nor did he want to die in a hospital. I made the decision to remove the life support, probably the hardest one of my life. With the help of Hospice, he was put on a portable life support and brought home by ambulance. They did not expect him to survive the trip. Sad Widower, maybe this is more common than we know, but when the portable life support was removed, he sat up and said "I'M ALIVE". He immediately fell back and went into a semi conscious state. We stood by his bed for the next 19 hours and watched him take one less breath every hour until he was gone. I was in shock, completely numb as I stood outside in the driveway and watched the body bag being loaded into the mortuary vehicle. It was surreal.

The following year I watched my daughter die from cancer. She died after screaming and convulsing all day. Her death was not peaceful and is forever embedded in my heart and mind.

Needless to say, I've seen enough death to last my lifetime.

[V. R.]

Oh, Karen, I could feel the tears filling my eyes while reading your sad words. You have had to go through so much, losing your darling daughter too, my heart and thoughts go out to you. 

Sending you a virtual hug. 

Enza. 

[kayc]

20 hours ago, nashreed said:

Can it be just slow neglect of your health?

I used to tell my sister she was committing passive suicide, she agreed.

My husband died five days after his 51st birthday.  To say it was a shock is an understatement..

Karen, you got hit doubly hard, I can't imagine how hard that's been for you.

 

[Gwenivere]

Karen, i never know what to say after everything you have faced and are know etched  in your heart.  You are amazing to me.  It’s so cruel what was dealt to you. Death is ugly, but it should go n a natural flow and that would never take a child first.  Your husband suffered much too long.  I wish I could bind myself to what I saw.  I can’t recall so many things I’d like to, but we cannot escape those visions. Much love to you.  💕

[scba]

3 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

 we cannot escape those visions.  💕

That phrase... I won't ever be able to escape the vision of my boyfriend in life support and the three seconds in which I felt Death being right there, I swear I felt it in my own flesh and bones.