This feels unreal. I’ve definitely cried a lot since her diagnosis, but her being gone is something I can’t wrap my head around. This past four months just happened so fast. The decline was rapid. Has anyone else felt this feeling of unreality? When does it finally hit? I feel sort of numb and I’m just waiting for it to hit me like a ton of bricks. I love my mom so much and I just want her back!!!
It still hasn’t sunk in. She had a seizure on January 7. A few MRIs later, on February 19 she had the biopsy. A few days later confirmed GBM — left temporal lobe.
It took almost a month to get treatment started. She kept going downhill. Cognition worsened; she needed a walker to get around; she lost control of her bladder.
After finishing only 12 of 30 radiation treatments, she lost her ability to walk and went into the hospital and never came home. They tried everything to restore her function, but it kept going downhill. The cancer moved too fast.
It doesn’t feel real. I watched it all happen and I felt so helpless. She had been so healthy otherwise. She was 76.
This grief is so crushing. Just a few short weeks ago, we were full of hope as treatment was in progress and her MGMT status was methylated. But her 76-year-old body just buckled under the extreme affects of chemo radiation. We were told she was too frail to continue. I want to blame the doctor who told us to cut her steroid dose in half overnight, but I don’t know if keeping her on the higher dose would have made a difference.
It’s been traumatic having a front row seat to my mom’s dramatic decline. She was living with me during all of this… since before diagnosis until she couldn’t walk anymore. I’ve watched her vomit from the chemo, I’ve watch her struggle to walk, I’ve watched her lose control of her bladder while trying to get out of bed to make it to the bathroom.
We went from still being able to have conversations to seeing her become completely non-verbal. She can look at us and nod. She can still squeeze my hand. But I know soon she won’t be able to do those things anymore either.
How do I do this? What will I do without my mommy? I’m 48, but I still need her. My heart is completely broken. 😞