How to feel when they don’t tell you they’re sick?

[Sarahismymom]

I’ve shared a lot here about losing my mom in September.  What’s been bothering me lately is that she might have known she was sick and refused to do anything about it. I can’t be certain if that. It’s all a mystery. I knew mom wasn’t well but she’s probably convinced myself she would be ok. She would always deflect my concerns and if I pushed with questions, she could get angry. She avoided doctors most of the time but she was seeing one the last few months. That gave me a false sense of security.  
 

She quit smoking in 2020. She told me she just didn’t want them anymore. At the time I accepted it. Her sister thinks she’d learned something from a doctor and decided to quit.  When I spoke to a doctor who examined her, I was told mom had cancer. That came out of nowhere. There were concerns but nothing confirmed. She even told me she didn’t think she had cancer. One of her friends said mom mentioned she thought she was very sick but didn’t want to worry me. 
 

I have no idea what I’m writing. I talked to mom like I always did. I didn’t know she was so terribly sick. I don’t know how to feel. I think she couldn’t gotten treatment that would’ve benefited her but she didn’t have any confidence in hospitals.   Had she gone a year earlier, she might still be here. I guess that upsets me. I’m not angry at her but i wish she’d pursuers medical treatments. (For the record, her doctor checked everything except her lungs. It wasn’t until July that her lungs were examined. I’ve lost confidence in doctors myself. )

I’m completely alone right now. I have no joy at all. Mom I know wouldn’t want that.  She had no faith that hospitals could help. I think I wish she’d told me more. We were a team and I think we could’ve fought through this. At least she could’ve gotten more time. I’m just overwhelmed.  Whatever her condition, I believe she contracted COVID and that made things worse. I said that and she refused to think there was a chance.  I think she probably had cancer (nothing was ever definitive) or COPD & COVID I sped things along. I told her to go to the hospital in April of 2020. I so wish she had. 
 

This post is a mess but that’s my mind right now. I miss her so much. I’m so tired of hearing my own voice.  I love you mom. 

[Jen H]

So sorry your going through this agony.  Though all our stories are unique, we still all go through all the different emotions.  The regrets, guilt, anger, what ifs.  At times it can consume your mind.  My mom passed away from anorexia and no matter how much I got angry, cried, even begged her to seek help, she still did what she wanted.  Her doctor even tricked her into going to rehab only to get out and do the same exact things. Six months later she passed away.   I always wished I could have gotten through to her.  Always wished I paid attention more and realized how serious her illness was.  Always wondered if I could've or should've done more.  Over time I've had to accept that she was her own person and there was probably nothing I could've done to get through to her.  How your feeling is completely normal.  This is one of the hardest things a person has to deal with in life.  You will never get over losing your mom.  They are irreplaceable.  You just learn to live with it the best you can.

[ADM925]

4 hours ago, Sarahismymom said:

I think she couldn’t gotten treatment that would’ve benefited her but she didn’t have any confidence in hospitals.

Mom hated the hospital and didn't want to go back after spending 3 weeks there with pressure ulcers while her son couldn't visit her.  She also said one of the attendants hurt her.  I now have extreme guilt from not calling the ambulance 4 1/2 months later when she didn't seem quite right one day (even though it appeared to clear up quickly).  They might have caught the blood clot which sent her a week later to the ER, where she had a cardiac arrest and went into the ICU on a ventilator for 38 days and a to a nursing home for another 5 weeks.  The doctors told me she'd never get off the vent and come home but she did.

4 hours ago, Sarahismymom said:

I’m completely alone right now. I have no joy at all. Mom I know wouldn’t want that.

Today makes it 6 months of the living-hell nightmare alone in the empty house, and it gets more unbearable by the minute.  I haven't known a moment's peace awake or (trying to) sleep since 7/17/21 when she left me, but I know Mom would understand because even during good times we hated being separated from each other.   If extraterrestrials did indeed crash here I can imagine their terror, because without my mother (my sole refuge) this place now feels like a frightening alien world that I don't belong in at all.

4 hours ago, Sarahismymom said:

This post is a mess but that’s my mind right now. I miss her so much. I’m so tired of hearing my own voice.  I love you mom. 

I don't know why but several times tonight I've had the eerie feeling that Mom is back in her upstairs bedroom and is about to say to me "go to sleep, it's very late".  It's the first time that has happened in 6 months and it's very heartbreaking.

[ESM]

5 hours ago, Sarahismymom said:

I’m completely alone right now. I have no joy at all. Mom I know wouldn’t want that.

I'm sorry you're going through this. I'm experiencing the same exact thing. I just came across an old note from my mother, I believe it was for my birthday or something, where she said to me I wish you a life free of all anxieties and fears. Yet, here I am, my every single moment of an existence engulfed in nothing but anxiety and fear. It horrifies me not only because of the obvious ill effects it has on me personally, but I think how my mother would feel knowing that I'm left here all alone in the exact state that she had hoped I would avoid for the rest of my life, engulfed in a never-ending wave of anxiety and fear. I only hope we all somehow find a way out of this. Try to be well.