[mymomismyhero]

All,
I only joined this forum about 3 weeks ago, wish I had done so much earlier. My wonderful, loving, selfless, mother (and best friend) passed away 28 Feb after only being diagnosed with MDS last summer. She was only 73 years young. The Dacogen ruined her lungs (after 4 rounds) and she was just about to start Vedaza when she passed.

We honestly thought she was going to beat this but she plummeted in a matter of only days. She went from being amazingly fine on Friday (22 Feb) to not being able to hardly breathe on Monday (25 Feb). I took her for a transfusion/platelets to our local hospital on Tuesday and with 12 liters of oxygen she couldn't get beyond 83 percent. Got her admitted and by the next afternoon I begged for some help for her breathing so they put her on a BIPAP (mask) at 15 liters. She got so much relief from the forced oxygen, she asked me to take her picture in the ridiculous mask. I spent that night in the hospital; during that night she got more blood and platelets. By the next morning she began to struggle to breathe again.

Because she was suppose to start Vedaza on Monday, her, my brother and I, decided together to get her a breathing tube put in. Although we knew she would be given morphine, we had no idea she would be sedated to the point she couldn't even communicate with us via paper/pen. They moved her to ICU to put the tube in and she was breathing good by about 0800 or so. About an hour after, we discovered she could still hear us even though she was sedated. Our minister came and asked her if she wanted him to pray; she opened her eyes and shook her head.

We talked to her all day long and we felt she was still going to be okay. By about 4:00 however, she began to feel clammy and her blood pressure and breathing started to decline. She left us at 6:06 P.M. that evening--it was the hardest day of my life!!

There is so much more to the story and, perhaps, when I can take my emotions out of it, I will tell you the rest. The one thing I will say, however, is that her local cancer doctor has no business being in her field. She was called 8 times the day before my mom died to come in, see her, and order her some more blood/platelets. Three of those calls were from me and one of them included me begging and crying for her to return my call. She was also called by our family doctor twice and the hospital nurses 3 times. That doctor did not show up until about 3 in the afternoon and mentioned she was late picking up her daughter and that she had so many more patients to look after. The horrible part is, she could have faxed the blood/transfusion order in first thing that morning.

I don't know if that blood/platelets would have made a difference but the fact is, I will never know.

For those of you out there going through what my mom endured, I certainly hope you have great doctors that actually care about you as a person and not just consider you another name on a piece of paper. It's hard enough to lose someone you love without having to feel so helpless in that you can't get someone to at least help that loved-one feel as comfortable as possible as they are passing.

God bless my mom and god bless all of you who are going through this or supporting someone who is...

Sheri