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vanzandt3 
2:40pm, March 1, 2009
The 20th of Feb marks one year since my mother's stroke. She had a brain bleed . She had called me saying she had a car accident (which wasn't true) but was fine. It was a ice day for the grandkids so I was at my daughter's house. As a result, when she lost conciousness no one could reach me. By the time they reached me they had sent her to a bigger hospital. I feel so guilty because the first hospital ignored her DNR and the second when they asked to operate didn't ask. I should have said no but didn't know how bad it was. I put my mom thru surgery that was useless!. After that we watched her for 5-6 day before they mentioned taking away life support. When we let her go it took almost 2 days for her to leave us. I am just left with why didn't I speak up!
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i'm so sorry to read your story! i have alot of guilt associated with my mom's care after her stroke. the first time we took her to the hospital the dr said she was just having withdraws from not taking her nerve medication (which was a very low dose to begin with) so he sent her home and told us to keep her on the med. i knew she didn't take it that often but never said anything. looking back i think we were all relieved to hear that's all that was wrong. after we brought her home she kept getting worse with her speech and not being able to get up and walk right. we thought she was just getting too much medecine and reduced it. two days later we took her to another hospital and found out she'd had a stroke with several smaller ones that followed. if i'd followed my gut instincts maybe things would never have gotten so bad. BUT, like they say, hind sight IS 20-20. when something so unexpected and tragic happens to someone we love we go into shock and our brains kinda freeze up on us. everyone can look back and see a hundred things they should have done or could have done that would have made things turn out better (or so we think). what's so hard to get through our heads is that we're only human. God is the only one that always knows the right thing to do. don't beat yourself up. you were only doing what the doctors were telling you your mother needed. i'll be praying for you and your family. i know what it's like to loose loved ones. i had a brother die in a wreck when he was 30yrs old, a nephew when he was 22, another nephew died at birth, and my oldest brother died 5 months to the day after my dad died. remember the love and let go of the guilt.
vanilla58