More than 3 weeks have gone by.
I don't know why I have started writing again, my defunct blog.
Maybe it's my way of dealing with my loss.
For the whole of last week, I spent a lot time trying to understand the cause of mom's illness and what led to her death. The doctors never explain the actual causes of her illness. At least not comprehensible in layman terms for me. The words that still ring in my ears are "serious condition", "prepare for the worst", "her heart is functioning at 20% now", fluids in her lung", "infection", "do you agree to resuscitate her if her heart suddenly stops" and more. The whole incident caught me off guard and honestly, I just lost my bearings.
Mom was hospitalized for 3 days before succumbing to her illness. She was in bad shape on the 1st day but she regained consciousness. The very first night mom was admitted, doctors had already told me to prepare for the worst and discuss it with other members of my family. I didn't because I couldn't think of living without mom. On the 2nd day, she was recovering well, conscious and able to talk briefly. I thought there is hope after all. Her condition worsen rapidly on the 3rd day and then slipped into a coma.
After piecing together the before and after event, I finally found an answer to mom's illness. Mom had been saying her heart sometimes beats fast and the traditional Chinese doctors believed her heart was weak a few years ago. According to doctors, it was part of aging and there was not much we could do except taking some Chinese herbal soup to strengthen her health. Mom always had swellings on her legs and had insomnia for about 2 years. Now I learn mom was suffering from Congestive Heart Failure.
It's a chronic heart disease which means mom's heart was slowly failing. When the heart fails, it could not pump blood properly to other organs, and in mom's case, this cause fluid retention her lung due to the back pressure. This explains mom feeling dizzy for many days due to the lack of oxygen in her blood as her lung was filled with fluid.
When things got more serious, mom had breathing difficulties and needed to be admitted immediately. By then, the fluids in her lung was infected which is known as community acquired pneumonia. She was sedated and put on a oxygen ventilator via breathing tubes. As she had an infection and her heart was weak, doctors had to use drugs intravenously to make her heart pump stronger but the side effect was her hear was pumping very fast for her age. In reality, mom was living on life support by using breathing machines and drugs in the hope she can overcome the infection which require 3 days to a week to be effective.
By the 3rd day, mom was suffering from severe sepsis which is blood infection. When an initial infection worsen, the whole body is infected through the blood stream. Then the whole body immune system goes into an overdrive to fight the infection. When this happens, the blood pressure will be dangerously low, reduced oxygen in blood stream and vital organs can shut down. To compensate this, the heart will pump even faster which can be fatal.
Mom's heart stopped once on the 3rd night but she bravely fought on after doctors successfully resuscitated her. By early hours of next morning, when I was at her bedside, her heart finally gave away and she left peacefully.
Although this answer will neither bring back mom nor change anything, the truth is a very important for me personally. At least I know what really happened and why her condition deteriorated rapidly.
I still miss you a lot mama.
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