Well this is one of my friend’s story…in her words.
“My mom was as healthy, if not healthier than all of us 4 months ago. On July 2nd, I got diagnosed with pneumonia, on July 6th, my mom got diagnosed. July 9th, my mom was in so much pain, I had to rush her to Norwood Hospital, where she was admitted and told she had a “virus” the doctor the next day asked her “what the fu*k are you doing her, leave” so they released her. She seemed fine, until 7pm that night when she went to bed. She kept getting worse and worse the next day until 7pm when my dad made the decision to rush her to Sturdy. They put her on 100% oxygen up her nose and moved her into the ICU at 2am. I went to see my mom and I was scared then, not even knowing what I would later face. That Sunday, July 12th, would be the last day I heard my mom say my name and that she loved me. Over the course of that night, she was put in an induced coma, as she tried to get out of bed numerous times. Seeing my mom in a coma for the first time was devastating. I was shaking and almost lost consciousness right there in the ICU. She was just sleeping but had a vent to do the breathing for her. 10 days later, I walked in and she was awake, they took her off of the comatose medication. The next day, her lung collapsed. Her lung did not heal, so they had to go in and put 60 6 MM staples to keep it shut. At the same time, they put a trache in. Again, this was hard to see my mom coming straight out of surgery. Also, we had learned about her condition, pulmonary fibrosis, or the stiffening of the lungs. This was incurable and fatal, but there was a chemo drug that could help her lungs, we were going to try it, I was growing my hair for her. Her lungs strengthened on their own so we didn’t have to take this route. She had a “heart strain”, I thought that was no big deal, not knowing that meant a heart attack. My mom was 47 years old, how could she have a heart attack, I thought, she ate all organic foods, she ran 2 miles a day, she worked out for 3. And I’m pretty sure I told EVERY nurse and doctor that multiple times. She had a EEG the next day, it came out bad. They stopped all sedation medications and did another the next day that was scheduled for 3:30…it didn’t start until after 5. My dad went and got the results read and there was improvement, so it was just a medical brain block, but there was some damage. The next day they did a follow up, again more improvement. About mid August, she was stable enough to be moved to rehab . She went to New England Sinai in Stoughton on a Friday. By Monday, her lung collapsed again. She was rushed back to Sturdy where they put another lung tube in and reinflated it. On the way to Sturdy, her ambulance broke down and she had to be switched on the highway. She was there and needed blood transfusions and plasma transfusions; it killed me I wasn’t allowed to donate. She went back to rehab towards the end of the week. She was there and less than a week later her other lung collapsed while I was in class. She was transported to Good Samaritan in Brockton. She was in rough shape when she got there. I rushed in and this was the worst that I’ve seen my mom. She was admitted to the ICU where we had to wear yellow gowns and plastic gloves to even see her. She had a few infections like Staff and the pneumonia had returned. She was released back to Sinai a week later and I learned she was on a DNR. This sucked to learn, but I knew her lungs collapsed on her heart so many times it wasn’t good. They did EEG’s and everything. They all came back no improvement. She was still unresponsive. Finally this past week, we made the choice to take her off life support on Monday 10/26. This absolutely sucks. She didn’t want to live this way and her quality of life is so low that a “full” recovery for my mom will be her able to control her eye movements. She will NEVER know who we are. Over the past two weeks, I’ve seen a difference in her, no anxiety, completely calm. I believe my mom’s soul has already passed on, she’s now with my little sister and all of my other family. I get little signs, whether it is Aerosmith, her all time favorite band, on the radio or others that are just hard and weird to explain. I felt in my heart she was coming back to us, she was so strong, so inspirational and I’m going to miss her every day of my life. I’m not sure how I will be able to go on and it’s going to take a while. Throughout this whole thing, I was so strong, for everyone, I filled my mom’s shoes, now I’m not sure how I’m going to be. Nobody really knew this was going on because I tried to stay upbeat and positive, but now I fall apart anytime of the day anywhere. This is the worst thing ever and I hope nobody else will ever have to go through such an ordeal. I did it for my mom though, I thought she would come back, she was worth me doing everything that I did; I would never change it, EVER. I’m pretty sure you have a better chance of being struck by lightn