Life Goes On

Wow..been awhile since I've been here. Alot has happened since May. Still doesn't seem real. *sigh*
As I said in my last post, Mom was diagnosed with Esophageal Cancer. That was May. Within 2 weeks she was undergoing drastic chemo and radiation treatments. They inserted a power port into her left upper side above her heart. Every week they would come change the needle and take her vitals from home. She was given a substance called TPN that was her nourishment since she wasn't able to eat or drink. She was hooked up to that for 18hrs a day. Things were going good. Tumor was shrinking, she was starting to eat again...Then one Friday, the nurse came and attempted twice to insert the needle to her port. The next day, she came back and tried again. Sunday morning at 2am, I was rushing Mom to the ER. She had developed an infection in her port. She was transfered to the University of Chicago. An hour away. This was the weekend before the 4th of July. She spent a week in the hospital there. Her port was removed and what was thought to be all of the infection was removed from her body. That's the week she started losing her hair. Things just started spiraling downhill from that point. I took her to her chemo appointment one Friday. They sent her to the hospital because her fever had spiked. I sat with her for 5 hours in the ER. 3 days later, she was unresponsive and in the ICU. She spent the last 2 weeks of her life in hospice. She would come and go. Sometimes we got responses out of her. But not often. When she finally passed away, she waited, like we knew she would, til everyone was gone. She waited til her mothers husband had come to be with her mother so that Nancy wasn't alone. She went quietly on August 11, 2010 at the age of 54.
It's a day to day struggle with me. I miss her so bad. My children miss her horribly. My husband misses his Mommy.
I suffer from alot of guilt. If only I had followed my gut and got her to the hospital as soon as I knew she was in pain. I shouldn't have let her talk me out of it. I shouldn't have left her alone with that nurse. I should have taken better care of her. I'm so sorry to her, and to the family for not taking better care of her.
Thanksgiving was so.....incomplete with out her.
Christmas was her favorite holiday.
I keep her Urn in the kitchen because that was her favorite place to be. The kids all say "Hi Grammy" when they see the Moon because she always said, no matter where we all are, we always see the same moon.
I look for the Moon every night, and I think often how during her last few moments on this earth I stroked her face and told her how much I loved her and she said "I love you".

October 12, 2010, my grandmother passed away in the nursing home. She had stopped eating. She had stopped responding. Unlike Mom, Nanny had lived a long full life. She was 86 years old when she passed. But that didn't make things any easier. I was Nanny's girl. I was the only granddaughter, so I was a bit on the spoiled side..lol
I take comfort knowing though that Mom was there when Nanny went and that together they are home.
But it still hurts like a bitch and I just want to go and SCREAM sometimes. Within 2 months, I have lost 2 of the most important people that have ever been in my life. Please tell me it gets easier?