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Belongs to: Therapist Cry's While Listening to Wings of Maria Pt 1 and 2 by Tool
@heartsupport My mom passed away in 2015 from a misdiagnosed lymphoma, and by the time they found it, it had spread into her whole chest and abdomen to the size of a fist. She was in so much pain, but the Dr. said that even the treatment would kill her at this point. We went home on hospice and she died 9 days later. From diagnosis to her death was 25 days. I’m a nurse, and I was so immensed in my job as a workaholic I feel tremendous guilt that I didn’t see the signs over the year that she was misdiagnosed. I think that I have shut down to grief. I can’t even cry about it. I went into robot mode to care for her the best that I could but I was too late. She should still be here. I should be able to cry. I can’t do anything to feel. I punish myself. I’m guilty!
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Hey friend,
I’m so sorry for your loss. I lost my mom in 2014 to ovarian cancer, and it was kind of the same thing as you and your mom. She went home on hospice and was doing okay for about 2 weeks then the decline happened REALLY quickly. I was actually in the process of going into nursing school when everything happened, and even then, I had the same mindset as you did. I had a lot of guilt cuz I felt like there was more that I could do. After she passed I tried to take care of my family as much as I could, but I didn’t take care of myself. It wasn’t worth it at all. You DID care for her the best that you could, and you did that as someone taking care of their parent first. I’m sure if your mom could talk to you, she would tell you how proud she was of you for not only taking care of her, but also being able to open up, because that’s taking care of yourself. <3
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I had to take the time to search what lymphoma is and discovered it’s cancer in the lymphatic system. Honestly, reading this gave me a great understanding how of you feel and how you are grieving. Punishing yourself for a situation that you feel could have been prevented is something I am all too familiar with. I had to eventually let go and understand that I can be the defense for most things that are out of my element of control. The universe sends people to us and take them away in ways that question why it happened in the first place. I have seen my aunt work tirelessly as a nurse and know how much time it took away from her and I see the same in this post, without truly knowing who you are. I hope one day you can take some time off and grieve, heal and transform that loss into positive energy of yourself and others that you love. All nurses need extra time off for living for themselves and their family.
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Welcome to HeartSupport - you found a community of people who care about you and your situation, and your grief over losing your mom. While I have not lost a parent yet, both my mom and dad are having major health issues and live thousands of miles away from me it is tough to know how much time I should devote to being there to help them or to be here with my own family and 3 kids. I do want to address your last statements about punishing yourself and you being guilty. While those feelings of guilt you may have and the consequence (the self-punishment) you think you deserve - I don’t think your mom would agree with that for a second and I don’t think they are true or deserved. You, along with a lot of other medical professionals didn’t catch the cancer until it was too late, and I know that was devastating for you, but I don’t think there is any blame that rests solely on you. The stages of grief take time. And that timeline is not the same for everyone. Being numb and angry about the loss is natural and is part of the process. I do know that exact feeling of “why am I not crying right now?” and then the follow-up question we ask ourselves of “what is wrong with me that I’m not crying now?” There is nothing wrong with you. We are all human and losing a loved one that we are close to is traumatic and grief is challenging and sometimes we think we won’t ever make it through. I hope that the replies that you receive from your post give you some measure of forgiveness for yourself (which is one of the hardest things we ever have to do as human beings), some comfort in your loss, and some encouragement to move forward one day at a time. I think that when you least expect it, maybe a song, or a memory, or a smell, or something will trigger a flood of emotion in you and you might cry for hours - it might take weeks, or months - but it will happen and you will begin to heal.
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