My mother, God rest her soul, was 62 when she passed away. She was the mother of 8 of us...6 boys and 2 girls... I am the baby of them...She was a very strong woman who loved to work in the garden and she could grow anything. She had a green thumb...We spent our summers in the garden and at the rivers and lakes fishing.... She was my best friend.
She had become ill December 1st of 2002...I got a call at home saying I needed to come out to where she lived because there was something wrong...When I got there she seemed very lost and confused...The symptoms that she had seemed like a stroke so we called the ambulance to come and get her and take her to the hospital...When they had arrived they immediately transported her to the Fredonia hospital...There she had a seizure and they gave her some medicine then airlifted her to St. Francis hospital in Wichita, Kansas.
She was at St. Francis from December 1st to December 8th. While she was there they ran all kinds of test on her Cat scans, MRI's, etc....They found a couple of masses in her lungs and in her brain...The swelling that was in her brain is what was causing the problems with her speech and movement of her arms and legs...They did a biopsy of the masses that were in her lungs...We didn't find out the results until December 26th...At that time the Doctors told us it was cancer and it had spread to her brain.
In the months to come were the hardest things in life I have ever had to go through...On Dec. 28th my uncle and I took my mother to the Coffeyville hospital to start her radiation...The admitted her because she had become dehydrated and that way they could do her radiation treatments as well.
We got to bring her home on the 8th of January...She came home to live with me, because her boyfriend for the last 9 years couldn't take care of her, or should I say didn't want to. Hospice was involved and helped me a lot in the care of her. It was a roller coaster effect though...She would get to doing a lot better and she would go back to her house but when she would get bad again she would come back to my home with me...They had her on Decadron, lortab, morphine (at the last for pain) and dilatian. This continued on until March.
The first of March she came back home with me again for the final time...I couldn't seem to get her to eat or drink much and she slowly withered away...I knew the morning of the March 15, 2003, that was to be her last day here...I said my goodbyes and told her I loved her and for her to go and stop suffering, because that is what she was doing by hanging on...At 7:00p.m. I was holding her hand as she past away...I still wonder if I did all that I could for her...Everyone says I did what I could, and maybe they are right. But I miss her and love her and want her to be here with me...And in one sense she is...and she will always be...She was a good woman and I will miss her dearly until I see her again....
