Widows & Widowers Support Group

This community is dedicated to those who have lost a husband, wife, or partner. Anything is open for discussion here, with the hope that we can focus on grief, bereavement, life after loss, and continuing on after a great loss.

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Death & Dying
/ Widows & Widowers Support Group

Guilt

Sosammy1
Sosammy1

I feel such guilt. I had to make the decision to stop the medication that was keeping my husband's heart going after his heart attack. He was in ICU for 2 days and they tried everything to protect his brain function. It wasn't enough. He was too long without oxygen. He had lost circulation in his legs so even with brain function he would have had to have them amputated, his kidneys had started to shut down and there was minimal brain function. My head knows it was the right thing to do. We had discussed it in the past and had all the legal papers done, but my heart feels such guilt and I feel like I killed him. My heart screams maybe God neeed more time to give us that miracle. It has been 17 days and why is it now that those feelings are surfacing? I was so strong at the hospital and now feel like I am falling apart. 

pahatfi
pahatfi
We turned off my husbands defibulator months before he died, he got shocked a total of nine times and didn't want it to happen anymore. he had a do not recesitate order from the doctor. it still hurt to lose him in july. I prayed for God to have mercy on him and he died the next morning. I feel guilt for his death even though he was ready. I think it's normal to feel some guilt when a loved one dies, part of the if only's.
countrylive
countrylive
I rethink her final days often.. she was suffering in new territory... Nocardia infection after heart valve replacement... Not the usual target for Nocardia... Drs were in uncharted territory...Should they try this...or should they try that... but she eventually lost kidneys, liver, lungs were damaged and brain under attack...were the DRs telling me facts or beliefs?.. I will never know... i had to make the tough decision that no one should.. not just grief.. but a feeling of responsibility... I failed to bring her home.
shewearsblack17
shewearsblack17
Oh my, the guilt I carried around for so very long. Guilt for not being able to keep him alive. Feeling like I could have done more or done things differently. And the DNR...but I just could not stand to see him suffer any more - like with broken ribs or sternum. My guilt list was a mile long. I finally told this to my pastor (my man of God), and he said that he didn't think there was anything anyone could have done to have either prolonged Dennis' life or shortened it. That has helped somewhat, but I cannot say that all the guilt has been erased. If there ever is a next time around for me, I want to be better; I really do.
shewearsblack17
shewearsblack17
I went to the grocery stores tonight and got to thinking about how we tried the diet thing - juicing, organic food, etc. and it was all for nothing. If I had known it wouldn't help, I would have fed him gourmet meals, whatever he wanted. That's what the hospitals do, knowing that sugar feeds cancer, and yet they give it to the patient. Plus, preparing all that special food took time away that I could have spent with him. How do you eradicate the guilt?
ohsolost
ohsolost
My husband spent 14 days on a ventilator in the ICU and 2 more days after having a tracheostomy. He would never be able to breathe on his own again and his organs began shutting down. I, too, had to make "the decision" and the guilt I felt - well, you all know. No matter how logical my head was about choosing to remove him from the machines, the guilt continued to break my heart as much as his actual death did. A year after my sweetheart died, we had to choose to make the same decision for my father-in-law. His doctor helped by asking, "If Lou were standing here with you and could see the condition he is in, what would his choice be?" I just hugged the doctor and thanked her for helping me to dispel the guilt I had carried for my own darling's death.
vwidow
vwidow
Shewearsblack you did good in trying to heal him with the healthy. I hate the fact too that hospitals give cancer patients bad sugars! I commend you in your love...