My Mothers transition

Mother was released from the hospital in Pheonix after a year of treatment for her Leukemia. She underwent a stem cell transplant in Dec of 2005 and had many complications after that. In November of 2006, she was finally well enough to come home to Tulsa and her family and friends.

I picked her up at the airport on November 1st. She was in high spirits and wanted to go to dinner. We picked up my Grandmother and went to eat fajitas and Senor Tequila’s (great restaurant!). She didn’t eat much, but her appetite was small these days. I spent the rest of the evening helping her get settled and sorting through her medications for her. This was the last ‘normal’ amount of time I was able to spend with her.

I went back to Grandmothers on Saturday to help my stepfather take the truck back. I now wish I had gone to see her every night she was here. Mother was sleeping and did not get up the entire time I was there; she was not feeling well.

I received a phone call on Sunday morning from my stepfather asking me to come with him to take her to the ER as she was not acting right. She was extremely emotional and complaining of back pain. We were there for about 10 hours when they finally had her transported to the Bone Marrow unit at a different hospital in town. The Dr. there advised us that her liver was having problems, but he was not sure exactly what the problem was. They spent the next few weeks running test and finally on November 14th, they called us in and told us that they were pretty sure it was liver failure due to iron overload caused by all of the blood transfusions. They had started to treat it aggressively, but the treatment would take a few months, and he was pretty sure she didn’t have that long. We began to pray.

She fought, but the liver began to affect the rest of her body and she began to shut down on Friday. We were all called in to say our Goodbyes. My sisters, my stepfather and I pretty much moved into the waiting room at the hospital. By Sunday night, she was losing her blood pressure and they could not hear her heartbeat well enough to count it. The nurses kept asking us if there was anything undone; if there was someone she needed to see. We couldn’t think of anyone as everyone had been there to see her in the past few days. By morning, she was still barely with us. We could hear a very faint heartbeat, but only intermittently. We all gave her permission to leave, but she held on.

Around 9:30 or so, my little brother Nathan called the hospital. He was insistent on coming to see Mother. Of course, none of us wanted to leave to travel the 20 miles and back to get him. He called his father, who felt an urgency to leave his work and bring him to the hospital. Less than an hour later, Nathan – who never gets in a hurry – came rushing through her hospital room door. He went straight to her bed, took her by the hand and said the words I will never forget….Hi, Mom; I’m here; I Love You; You can go see Jesus now.

As soon as he finished speaking Mother took her last breath.