OP
OP
Katsmeow
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 5,308
My mom passed away yesterday afternoon. It was very sudden. The doctor said that her heart just stopped.
We had been out while the caregiver was with her. We were on the way home when I got a call from the service that the caregiver had called them and said my mom had fallen. She said that my mom was OK and talking and nothing was broken, but she lacked strength to get up.
We were only a couple of minutes away so we went there. Mom was on the floor in the bathroom with the caregiver. Apparently she had had a sponge bath and had gotten up from her tub transfer bench and was holding on the walker. It sounded to me like she basically sort of slid down to the floor. It wasn't a hard fall.
She was conscious and talking when we got there. She said she could get up which wasn't surprising as she normally needed to be sitting somewhere fairly high up for her to be able to get up. Also, she was in an awkward position. We moved the walker out of the way and she could roll over and get in a better position. We helped her sit up.
Then we got the walker right behind her. It was one of those with 4 wheels and a seat. So it was easy to get her from the floor to the seat. During all of this she was talking and making sense. She tried to help DH with the handles on the walker and he told her that he could handle it and for her to just ride.
He pushed her to her room (next to the bathroom) and got the walker next to the bed. He was saying he was going to help her stand up using the walker when he suddenly said that she was unresponsive and for me to call 911. It seemed to change in the blink of an eye.
I called 911 and the paramedics were there in 4 minutes. They commented that she still had spontaneous respiration. They took her out to their ambulance and worked there in the parking lot for awhile and then took her to the ER.
I got to the ER and basically I found out that her heart had stopped at some point and they had been working to get it started and couldn't really get it done. She never regained consciousness.
It was shocking for her to be gone so suddenly. I knew that with her heart failure that it would really only end one way, but I didn't expect it so quickly. Based upon my conversations with the doctors and nurses I expected her to continue to decline and to ultimately succumb. I just didn't expect it to be yesterday.
From what I have read almost half of people who die due to heart failure died through a sudden cardiac arrest. I am thankful that my mother did not have to suffer through a long and painful decline.
Of course, from my standpoint although I felt I was generally prepared for her to die I wasn't really thinking it would be yesterday. I just kept thinking about how shocked I was for it to be so sudden.
We had been out while the caregiver was with her. We were on the way home when I got a call from the service that the caregiver had called them and said my mom had fallen. She said that my mom was OK and talking and nothing was broken, but she lacked strength to get up.
We were only a couple of minutes away so we went there. Mom was on the floor in the bathroom with the caregiver. Apparently she had had a sponge bath and had gotten up from her tub transfer bench and was holding on the walker. It sounded to me like she basically sort of slid down to the floor. It wasn't a hard fall.
She was conscious and talking when we got there. She said she could get up which wasn't surprising as she normally needed to be sitting somewhere fairly high up for her to be able to get up. Also, she was in an awkward position. We moved the walker out of the way and she could roll over and get in a better position. We helped her sit up.
Then we got the walker right behind her. It was one of those with 4 wheels and a seat. So it was easy to get her from the floor to the seat. During all of this she was talking and making sense. She tried to help DH with the handles on the walker and he told her that he could handle it and for her to just ride.
He pushed her to her room (next to the bathroom) and got the walker next to the bed. He was saying he was going to help her stand up using the walker when he suddenly said that she was unresponsive and for me to call 911. It seemed to change in the blink of an eye.
I called 911 and the paramedics were there in 4 minutes. They commented that she still had spontaneous respiration. They took her out to their ambulance and worked there in the parking lot for awhile and then took her to the ER.
I got to the ER and basically I found out that her heart had stopped at some point and they had been working to get it started and couldn't really get it done. She never regained consciousness.
It was shocking for her to be gone so suddenly. I knew that with her heart failure that it would really only end one way, but I didn't expect it so quickly. Based upon my conversations with the doctors and nurses I expected her to continue to decline and to ultimately succumb. I just didn't expect it to be yesterday.
From what I have read almost half of people who die due to heart failure died through a sudden cardiac arrest. I am thankful that my mother did not have to suffer through a long and painful decline.
Of course, from my standpoint although I felt I was generally prepared for her to die I wasn't really thinking it would be yesterday. I just kept thinking about how shocked I was for it to be so sudden.
