A very touching account, and I know what you mean about being scared for you as well as her.

I'm sure she's comforted by the presence of people who love her. She's probably more worried about you....Moms can be that way, ya know?

I'm sorry you're mom is dying, Nancy. Your post made me remember that moment with my dad, and anticipate that moment with my mom, who is right now giving every appearance of being indestructible, but I know we'll lose her too some day.

You conveyed the particular anguish of that moment when you're walking down that last stretch with them so accurately, and for that, I thank you. It's comforting to know that although we go through this sort of loss alone, others also go through it, and the world goes on.

Schmutzie: your earlier post, about your dad: it was very similar with mine at the end. One of the most difficult moments of my life was not being able to wheel him out of that room.

[sorry for the double post and the mangled grammar. I need to take my nap]

thanks, mike and dawn.  I spent most of the week at the hospital with my mother - by Saturday night she was really upset with all of us and wanted to leave and go home.  She insisted that since she'd been admitted (last tuesday afternoon) she felt that she'd only gotten worse.   As long as I can remember, she's had a terrible, although not completely irrational fear of hospitals.  She's seen more than a few close friends go in for something relatively minor only to have it develop into something far more serious and die there.  Elderly people with weakened immune systems (like hers) are so much more susceptible to a host of things like staff infection - and she felt like a sitting duck.  That was all it took; my sister and I talked with her doctor and he reluctantly agreed that if she could get up and at least walk down the hall, that he'd discharge her on Sunday.  She managed to do that, just barely.  But her pneumonia was under control with an antibiotic and all her other health problems were pre-existing ones.  She's still very ill, but at least now she's home in her own bed. 

I think for many elderly people with sharp, sound minds like my mother, continuing to maintain self-autonomy and control over their lives becomes the single most important thing in the world.  And throughout all of this, my own children are learning and watching and taking it all in.   Which gives me hope that when old topazz is in her dotage and tooling around in her wheelchair, she won't be shipped off to the nearest old age home.

I think that is what really killed my mother.

Having her illness put her in the hospital, and home in a wheelchair tied to an oxygen tank

The horror of losing autonomy and mobility.  Of having to depend on others.  She just couldn't do in anymore.

Your post makes me all the sadder because you are doing so much better job with your mother than I did with mine.

Bite,

I think there's something about mothers that bring out the guilt - We may have gotten my mother out of the hospital - but had we not - my mother would've made life miserable for us until we did.  You can't beat yourself up about stuff like this, but if its possible to do something to keep them autonomous, I think for most people thats the main thing.  I'm just grateful that she wasn't in a medical situation that couldn't be handled at home - I don't know where we'd be if she needed round the clock care.   Even so, I still feel so much guilt for not spending more time with her.   She was so appreciative of the 3 days I did spend there last week, I'm going to take time off from work in June and be with her a lot more.