My mom died on November 2nd, after suffering sudden and severe brain damage. She was 67.
Background: Her health had been poor for a long time. She had been a dialysis patient and in assisted living for the past three years, she had uncontrolled diabetes, etc. It had been about a year and a half since her last hospitalization, though, and things seemed to have finally settled down a bit.
Early on Monday, 10/26, I got a call from her assisted living facility: she’d fallen twice within a few hours, and the second time she hit her head. She was being taken to the ER. I live 40 miles away, so I called my father (they’ve been divorced for decades but were friendly and he’d been helping take care of her) and he went to the hospital right away. Her head was fine – she didn’t even need stitches – and she was conscious, but she had a high fever and an infection of indeterminate origin. She got dialysis and was admitted. When Dad left he said she was sleeping most of the time, but had started not recognizing him when she was awake.
At 3am on Tuesday, 10/27, the hospital called: she’d been moved to the ICU, because her fever was uncontrollable and she had become unresponsive. She was also septic. My father and brother were already planning to go back to the hospital that morning, so they began taking shifts at her bedside and I made plans to be there starting Thursday morning. We’d never seen her unresponsive before, but we’d seen her septic and in the ICU and there was no reason at that point to believe she wouldn’t pull through.
At some point on Tuesday/early Wednesday she was intubated, because they worried she might stop breathing.
Wednesday night I dropped my dog off at the kennel and drove to a hotel near the hospital, and was by her side first thing Thursday morning (10/29). By then they had run a CAT scan and a CT scan, and when I arrived they had just finished an EEG. None of the results was encouraging: everything showed significant brain damage (the scary medical term was “moderate to severe encephalopathy”). Tests showed evidence of two small strokes, but they couldn’t tell how recently. The doctor said there was no way to tell whether her neurological condition was a result of primary damage to the brain (loss of oxygen/bloodflow), or whether it was a “side effect” of the significant infection. As she became medically stable, though, her mental status did not improve or change at all.
Because there was no change for so long, on Friday night (10/30) they did an MRI. By then, the respiratory therapist told us, the ventilator was doing most of the work. I got the results Saturday morning: there was no good news. I asked if Mom was considered comatose at that point, and was told “yes.” The ICU doctor said the next step was for a neurologist to evaluate Mom and talk to us about our options.
We saw the neurologist on Sunday morning (11/1). Mom’s brain stem was still functioning, but the evaluation was poor: the neurologist said all decisions were completely up to us, but that she frankly didn’t think the prognosis was good. Mom had a living will and my brother and I knew (a) she was gone and (b) wouldn’t want to be kept alive like that, so we made the decision to remove life support. We waited until our dad could arrive, so we could tell him what the doctor said and explain our decision. He completely understood. Mom was extubated at 12:22pm; all of the medication was stopped at 12:30.
The ICU let her stay there for as long as they could, but eventually they needed the room and at 3am on Monday morning (11/2) she was moved to a palliative care area. She died – peacefully (mercifully) – at 8:35 that night.
To say the past week has been surreal would be an understatement. She always wanted to be cremated, so we made those arrangements and my brother and I will pick her ashes up tomorrow. We are having two services: one in Maryland (where she lived for 30+ years) on the 14th, and one in New Jersey (where she’s from, and where most of our family is) whenever the pastor there decides to get off his ass and call us back. I’m her named executor, and I’ve already been in touch with her CPA and have retained a lawyer to help me through the probate process. I’m going back to work on Tuesday, which feels both too soon and like it’s been a month instead of just a week and a half. Mostly I think it will be good to have something else to focus on. I worry a little about randomly crying at work, though (they would totally understand, I’m just not one to cry publically – and I try to never cry in the office).
I know this post was long, but it’s my first effort at putting the timeline in writing and it was helpful. I know many of you have lost parents, too; some recently. This is a club I never wanted to become a member of. 
“And I would give anything I own / Give up my life, my heart, my home / I would give everything I own / Just to have you back again”
