I am 25 years old and live with my Family. I was down in London for a course from Work for 4 days. I left home on the Monday morning, my mum helped me with my handbag whilst I carried my suitcase downstairs, and she waved me goodbye and closed the front door. I called her that very evening after she had finished her shift. We had a longish convo about where I was staying and how I had made so many plans to go see and experience London. This was my last conversation. She told me to call her the next day as it was her day off. The next day I was sat in my course when my phone was flooded with incoming calls and messages to come home ASAP. I rang back...
My mum had a Cardiac Arrest whilst in her sleep on the Sofa. She didn't get the chance to call out to my brother who was upstairs or call 999 herself. My dad came home from work (potentially up to an hour later- to this day we don't know how long she remained like that for) and found her unconscious when he attempted to wake her. Emergency services were called, CPR was done, and eventually paramedics were able to bring back a heartbeat and somewhat stabilise her enough to take her to Oxford JR via air ambulance. There she was basically in a Coma. Initial CT scans revealed nothing, further testing revealed no abnormalities heart attack etc. The next step was to wait for her to make a recovery- to have some sort of movement, open her eyes, move her hand etc. She spent the next 9 days in hospital with no change of any sort to her condition, if anything it was slight deterioration and more support required from the ventilator. Another CT scan and test revealed significant brain damage and swelling due to being starved from oxygen. She was not going to make any sort of recovery. Tests showed she had no brain activity left. The next step was inevitably to switch off the ventilator support she was receiving. This was the hardest thing to watch ever. To see the life (not that it was one anymore in that hospital bed) being sucked out of her like that. Agonising..
You see this kind of thing in films, I never thought it would happen to someone I loved dearly. It has been such a shock for me and my family that we are in total denial 3 weeks on (funeral was last Monday). Having someone go from relatively fit and healthy with nothing wrong to this is just insane. It's hard to cope and to deal with. In the space of 9 days my entire life has turned upside down!! I keep going over what her final thoughts might of been before she went to sleep. For her it was a very normal day- just before this she had lunch with my brother at home, put her grandson to sleep, washed all the dishes even did the laundry that very morning. Nothing out of the ordinary for someone who had nothing wrong with them!! I keep going over tiny little details of this entire nightmare. The hardest part was being away in London, away from this situation and not really understanding the severity of the whole thing. Even when I did return home and I visited her in hospital it was too overwhelming. How she was just lying there with all these tubes going into her, taking deep breaths and looking totally distressed. She didn't look the same anymore. We knew that really she had passed away that day Dad found her at home. This, in hospital, was not really her. It was just a body lying there but she had gone.
She was only 53 years old with so much to do ahead of her - I am engaged and supposed to be getting married next June!! I have returned to work but nothing is the same anymore. I have no joy in anything and randomly tear up after recalling random memories. I know time is supposed to heal and right now it is very raw, but it is something that is going to stay with me for the rest of my life. The pain will always be there, maybe I'll be able to manage it better but it won't go away that's for sure. We were all so happy and had so much to look forward to. Now I have to do things without her here. Get married without my mum. My future kids won't have a grandmother and no memories of her! I don't know how to act or behave and I feel like I have to just "get on with it". I feel like I am under a lot of pressure and emotional ache it is taking the better of me. I have a wonderful and loving Fiancé who is trying his best but no one has the words for this situation- No matter what anyone does or says it doesn't make it better. I feel totally alone and lost and just feel like life is totally worthless. I can't deal with death I never have been able to. My grandparents passing was hard but this is just impossible. I don't understand how someone dies just like that, like what happens to them and their soul. For someone to die before your eyes is just painful, especially the way this has happened. So unexpected and sudden. She was a wonderful person, who always was optimistic and had a very positive outlook on life. She was very lively and talkative and always made people feel at ease. The house is just not the same without her.
Hardest thing I have ever had to face
R.I.P
