Saying Goodbye: Part 1

It. Is. April. I can not believe I am writing this blog entry. We are coming up on the one year mark of my mom being gone, I don't know if I could even say those words out loud if I tried. So much happened that last year of her life... numerous hospital stays, scans and radiation treatments.

It is hard to remember the specific dates/months of them, and even the details have become a bit of a blur. As I have said a million times there were just endless emotions during this time and our family struggled to keep up with the rapid decline. I remember two different attempts at other treatments that inevitably ended with a home hospice decision that was made in late January 2021.

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June 2020 (Fathers Day) - Something was off, I could tell by the look on my dads face. I saw Hannah and him standing in my kitchen talking for a really long time while everyone else couldn’t take their eyes off Aubrey who was maybe two weeks old. I eventually asked them what was going on and they told me about moms changed scans. They surely didn’t give me the whole picture though as they were trying to protect me.

Chelsea - I do not recall many of my thoughts at this time. As I've mentioned on a previous post, I was right out of being pregnant and was just in my own world. I remember feeling some worry of course, but I was still hopeful at this point that there were many things that could be done to slow the tumors back down.

From Father's Day until late January 2021, this time consisted of 3 different treatments that each lasted a little over a month and would end with a hospital stay to try to manage the pain Mom was experiencing. There were also 2 radiation treatments, one on her hip and one on her chest. Again this was to attempt to reduce the pain. We don't even think she was doing scans anymore because at this point she wasn't on any treatment long enough to see if it would work. Although some of these early details are fuzzy, we remember very vividly getting that phone call in January that Mom had a long talk with her doctor (whom she had known for the entire duration of her cancer journey) and had finally made the decision to stop treatments and live the duration of her life on her terms.

Now, this was not a total shock, as our family had been talking every day at this point. We honestly thought, and kind of hoped she was going to stop with the treatment before. CLEARLY we did not want to see our Mom leave us.. BUT watching her go through the treatments when we knew she wanted to stop just broke our hearts. We understood why she was doing it, but it did not make it easy.

Mom came home from the hospital and Hannah and I were there to greet her as we awaited a nurse from Gilcrest Hospice Center to come as well. Mom came home on an arm implant that was giving constant pain medication, so we needed to get all of the paperwork and medication situated. Mom was in such good spirits and seemed as if a weight was lifted off of her. She looked so empowered, like she was so confident and could take on whatever was going to be thrown at her.

The next two months were relatively low key as we prepared for Hannah's wedding. I stopped working, Hannah took leave from work, and my dad worked full time from home so we could all help Mom and just spend as much quality time together as possible.

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March 2021 - Hannah’s wedding. Such a bittersweet day. We knew mom was in a lot of pain and hadn’t slept, so we were certainly worried about her arrival at the venue. I remember the long embrace Hannah and Mom had when she got there, it was just so amazing that the day was finally happening and that Mom was there witness. She looked so beautiful, with her hair and makeup done and all her pretty dainty jewelry. My mom had a first look with her, zipped her up in her wedding dress, and then Alana (their amazing photographer) had them stand next to one another and my mom was to say the most important thing about marriage for Hannah to always remember.

Bobby walked Mom down the aisle. She got to see Hannah and Brandon get married. Hannah surprised her and everyone with a mother daughter dance, which you can imagine is something engrained in my brain and my heart as one of the most beautiful yet heartbreaking memories I have. I will never forget that dance.

When Hannah and I walked our parents out to the car to go home after dinner, we hugged and burst into tears. We had talked so much the night before as we snuggled in the hotel bed together like we did when we were little about how we knew this would be the last happy day for our family. We cried, we talked for a few minutes, and then we remembered Mom would want nothing more for us to have fun for the rest of the night.. and that we did in her honor.

Hannah’s wedding was the most intimate I had ever experienced, with about 20 people in attendance. The staff had made everything so perfect for her and Brandon, I could cry thinking about them every single time. They just went above and beyond and it was a day filled with so much love, laughter, and tears. (a blog entry on Hannah's wedding will come at a later date!)

The rest of March was filled with a lot of quality time that included coloring, snuggles, eating candy and lollipops.. and also managing medications, mom becoming more sleepy, and a lot of sleepless nights for all of us as her pain continued to intensify. We began to have more home visits with her nurse to up the dosage on her medication, which was not a good thing and seemed to help less and less with each visit. Her mobility began to decrease, and the hospital bed was finally on its way into the room we had decorated as a family for mom to pass away peacefully in her own home. This ended up not happening, as the pain Mom was experiencing was too intense and was clearly becoming unmanageable at home. With the recommendation from her nurse and the doctors, she was transferred to the Gilcrest facility in hopes of managing the pain there and then having her come home. Again, we sadly know this did not happen the way we all planned but isn't that the case with this whole experience anyway?

If I were to look at my life, I NEVER would have envisioned this is where I would be at 30 years old. I never would have thought I would be raising 2 kids without my mom by my side. I never envisioned Hannah having a miscarriage (see post on her story that she shared about it here) and becoming pregnant again without my mom. I never envisioned my dad being a Pop Pop without my mom HERE.

To be honest, tomorrow is April 1 and I am mad. I am mad I don't have my mom here with me. I am mad my kids won't know their Gammy. I am mad I continue to have flashbacks to where I was a year ago. I am mad remembering all of the pain my poor mom went through. I am just mad.. and I know that is OK. The stages of grief (at least to me) do not exist in the sense you go through one, and then move on to another. You go around, and around, and around. I know I will get out of this anger stage, but for now I am going to drink my wine, finish this blog post and BE MAD as I enter April. The worst month I have experienced yet.

I really want Hannah to write about the hospice experience with me, so more to come on that.

With Love,

Chels xoxo