Hi everyone, this is my first post here, although I've been reading through the forum for at least a couple of weeks now. I lost my mom on November 17th due to complications from lung cancer and chemo/radiation. She was 61.

She had always had health problems for as long as I can remember, but nothing life-threatening. She was a heavy smoker for a very long time, but she finally quit for good about 2 years ago. At the beginning of this year, she started to have a pretty nasty cough. She seemed to get sicker and sicker and she was hospitalized in June for a few days to find out what was going on. After a bunch of tests, she was officially diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer at the end of June. They wanted to be as "aggressive" as possible with the cancer, which seemed like the right thing to do at the time. She had always been very thin, but she had lost a lot of weight and was probably around 90 pounds when she started treatment. She seemed to do ok at first, just more tired than usual and feeling generally "yucky." She went downhill very quickly.

She completed two rounds of chemo and almost all of the radiation sessions, when she was hospitalized again in September for a week. She was down to 68 pounds and couldn't keep any food down at all. She had two blood transfusions and IV nutrition until they felt she was stable enough to go home. She decided to finish the radiation (she only had 8 sessions left) and was thrilled when she graduated from that! She seemed to be doing ok -- not great, but ok. She had started eating more than yogurt and Jello.

I last saw her on November 10th, and she seemed much more like herself. She had had a blood transfusion the week prior, and she said she felt like this one really made a difference. The next day, while I was at work, I got a call from my dad telling me that the neighbor had called him. My mom had been coughing up blood and the neighbor called 911. He asked me to go to the house since I could get there faster than him, but he didn't sound overly worried. I honestly didn't think it was going to be a big deal. I got to the house and she was lying on the living room floor, unconscious, with a huge pot full of blood next to her. When we got to the ER, she was conscious and coherent, but almost immediately they told us there was nothing they could do but make her comfortable.

We spent 6 days in the ICU with her. Each day got worse than the one before. They had a hard time stabilizing her blood pressure, so she was on meds for that. She was on a vent. The pain kept getting worse, so they would increase the pain meds and anti-anxiety meds, essentially knocking her out. She had a heart attack in the ICU one morning (they believe she may have had one at the house as well). The kicker was when they discovered an antibiotic-resistant infection in her lung that was only responsive to one medication -- and she was allergic to it. The infection came from one of the transfusions or from the infusion center where she was getting her chemo treatments.

We had to make the decision to turn off the life support and it was the hardest decision my father and I have ever made. Once they took the vent out, she breathed on her own for about 15 minutes and then went very peacefully.

I miss her like crazy, so badly that it physically hurts. I find myself having meltdowns at the drop of a hat, and other days it seems like I'm completely ok and functioning. Most days I feel like I'm just getting through the day and waiting for the opportunity to go to sleep so that I won't have to deal with anything. I'm an only child, and we don't really have any other family, so it's just me and my dad and my husband. I'm only 29 and we don't have kids yet, and I can't tell you how much that is tearing me apart right now. It is absolutely killing me that my mom won't be around to meet her grandchildren.

I'm also having a big problem with the concept of time -- it's been X amount of days since I last spoke to her, it's been X amount of days since she collapsed, it's been X amount of days since she passed, etc. I hate that time is moving forward and putting more and more distance between the two of us. I'm very religious and I believe in Heaven, and I know that she is here watching over me, but I can't really FEEL her presence and that bothers me. After my grandmother passed when I was a kid, I felt her all the time. I still do. It makes me wonder where my mom is and why her presence isn't as strong. We were very close and I guess I would feel a little bit better if I could just TELL that she is still here with me in some way.

Thank you for letting me ramble on. I can't tell you all what a relief it was to find this place and just read through all of your posts. It's comforting to read about other people feeling the same way I do -- it makes me realize I'm normal and not completely losing my mind.