Pictured above (1) A young Mom with a very young me. (2) Older sister Lillian and very young Mom looking very cute with her blonde hair!
Makes you wonder how a person can from there to where we are now.
It’s been a month since I posted last. It’s been a very active month for us after the out-of-left-field, ambush diagnosis of acute leukemia and I’m actually still processing and adjusting to the inevitable. After the diagnosis, things seemed status quo while Shad was visiting. I began to feel that they must have mis-diagnosed her. She was still walking around and looking out the window during the day, still eating her 3 meals a day with in-between snacks, still stubborn, still interested in life.
Then, little by little her mobility started declining. She was getting up less during the day, not as interested in what was going on outside the house or around her, her appetite was dwindling off and was having problems swallowing. It was very obvious that something was happening. She was agitated more than usual, started to feel frightened, especially at night. She also started getting night sweats and became very panicked and scared in the night time hours. One night I slept at the end of her bed so that she couldn’t get up and wander around the house in fear of her falling.
All this happened little by little, but here we are at the end of September and she can no longer stand up or get out of bed. Some days she eats nothing at all. She is still taking fluids although it’s not much to speak about. She sleeps rarely, like she is in a complete manic phase which effects everyone in the house. I’m not at all sure what meds she’s taking now are working for her. I actually think that one of the new meds are having an opposite effect on her.
She’s afraid to be alone and has stated very clearly that she is dying but when asked, she can’t explain why she feels that way…she just senses it, I guess. She said she has seen people and we all know what that means. They are waiting for her on the other side. I can only imagine how frightened that she must be. With the effects of dementia and Parkinson’s disease which makes her not in her right head anyway, and the speed of which she is losing the other abilities in her life due to acute leukemia, she must feel horrified of what is to come next…
and there is nothing that we can do other than to be with her, hold her hand and comfort her until the end.
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