My mom and I lived alone in a three-room apartment because my parents had been divorced for a long time and my mom had separated from my stepfather when I was in my early teens. Because of this, it was just my mom and me in everyday life, at holidays, and so on. In other words, we were very close together more or less all the time. I had just graduated from high school and moved out shortly after. I got my first real job at the small local ICA store, and I was very excited about my new chapter getting underway.
In November of that same year, I quit my job and saw that my then partner was standing outside waiting for me in his car. I always walked to work, so I was pleasantly surprised. Once in the car, I understood that something was very wrong. He was serious and held my hand as we drove away. I became sad right then, even though I had no idea what was behind his behavior. He didn't drive us home, but instead took us to my mom's. She was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for us. Here I started to panic and just began to sob. My mom had been having problems with her stomach for several years. She had had appendicitis several times, but just a few weeks after I moved out, the pain was so bad that we had to call an ambulance. Because of the pain that had arisen, the doctor wanted to check my mom's stomach further and booked her for an examination a week later. She went there herself. The doctor felt and squeezed my mom's stomach and asked questions - but wanted to send her home with painkillers. Now you don't know my mom, but my mom was not a person you could mess with. She did not accept what the doctor said and accused him of being lazy and careless (probably using a much uglier vocabulary than that). She refused to accept another appendicitis diagnosis. He finally did an ultrasound. During the ultrasound, they found 2 cancer tumors on my mom's one ovary.
My mom was booked for surgery at Linköping University Hospital. My mom's two best friends and I were there while she was being operated on. When they opened my mom up, they saw that my mom also had over 100 small tumors spread across her peritoneum. They removed the largest tumors, but realized pretty quickly that the tumors on the peritoneum had to be "scraped" away - and could not be operated on because the peritoneum is so sensitive. They made an attempt, but did not succeed. They had to sew my mom back up.
Unfortunately, the doctor who operated on my mom made a mistake. I don't remember exactly what, but it resulted in a fairly serious infection in my mom's stomach.
After only a couple of chemotherapy treatments, they had to pause the treatment to try to control the infection in the stomach. The problem was therefore that my mom was too weak to receive the chemotherapy, because the infection had become too large. The doctor said that she would die from the chemotherapy if she continued the treatment. My mom and the healthcare staff did their best to control the infection, but they did not succeed. After the chemotherapy and the infection, my mom was just skin and bones. Bruises all over her body and wounds on her arms from all the injections. I didn't recognize her anymore. We had reached the point where it was no longer possible to save her. The infection did not get better and the cancer spread upwards.
My mom told me that there was nothing more they could do.
We sued the doctor for his mistake to IVO, but it was probably mostly out of anger. Anyone can make mistakes. I don't think the doctor was negligent, just human, even though many other relatives of my mom blame her death on his mistake.
The cancer spread to my mom's lungs and she needed help breathing, so they put her on a ventilator. What I still don't remember is when she lost the ability to speak. She just stopped being reachable. I wanted to say goodbye, but there was just never an opportunity for it.
All of this happened over the course of 8 months. Everything went so fast and I don't know if I even had time to react to the fact that I was going to lose her. I felt like everyone was just giving up. My mom hadn't died yet and everyone told me that I should start clearing out my mom's home, plan the funeral and take a long leave from work.
But she wasn't dead yet? No one has said that she is going to die?
I still don't know if it was bad communication to me, or if I was in total denial.
My mom eventually became so weak that she looked like a 100-year-old. She lay in her hospital bed with a tube in her throat and it sounded like she had to fight for every breath. I received quite a bit of criticism from people here, but I hardly saw her during this period. Not because I didn't want to, but because she scared me. It looked like something out of a horror movie. It was no longer my mom lying there, it was just her shell. In my head she was already gone and out in the wind.
I get a call one ordinary morning, my mom has passed away at sunrise. By this point I don't even get sad, she was already gone. We go into the hospital and there they have laid my mom's body in another room, combed her hair, put makeup on her, and lit candles. No one prepared me for this - and I have never heard anyone talk about this happening. I was horrified by the sight. It is meant to give you a nice picture of the person who has passed away in this way, but it didn't help me at all. I understand the idea behind it, but I am very sad that I didn't know this earlier. Then I would never have gone into that room.
I am my mom's only child and since my mom is divorced I took on the responsibility of arranging everything after my mom's death. Her apartment was to be cleared out, the funeral was to be planned, insurance companies were to be called, relatives were to be informed, and so on.
I didn't start properly grieving until a year later, in the middle of a shift at a preschool. I started having panic attacks every hour. I called in sick.
There is probably nothing to say when it comes to losing the most important person in your life. You are never really the same again. The world is a little grayer without my mom. But I read somewhere that the best way to honor your mom is to take care of her child. So that is what I will do.
