I know I don’t share a lot of personal stuff on this blog, but felt like it today. Today is the 10th anniversary of my Mom’s death. I can’t believe it’s already been 10 years. I don’t remember having a lot of hard times with my moms that other teenagers have. The only time I was “embarrassed” by her, or to have her around was when I was with my husband’s family. The only reason I felt that way was because my Mom and Sister were more open about things than Charlie’s family and I was afraid they’d say something to embarrass me. Anyway, I had a great time growing up with my mom. She was my Girl Scout leader all the way through. We camped all the time. She loved taking me to the zoo (which I’m pretty sure this picture was at the zoo.) She LOVED Charlie. It’s so sad that she didn’t get to be there for our wedding. She was able to see my wedding dress before she died, because I picked it out probably 2 yrs before we got married. My mom loved nature and wildlife. We had a pet raccoon for a while and it was like her little dog. Rosie followed her around everywhere. When my sister became a single parent, before my nephew was even born, Mom helped raise Tommy in our house. He became more of a little brother than a nephew. Mom was always there for everyone and was very active in Church. She was on the Church council and was in the choir and taught Sunday school.

My mom wasn’t healthy, though. When I was in 8th grade, I started to realize just how unhealthy she was. My mom pushed and pushed for me to be confirmed in the Lutheran faith. About a week before my confirmation she had to go to the hospital. She ended up having a triple bypass surgery and missed my confirmation. She also had diabetes while I was growing up. My guess is she had gestational diabetes that turned into full-blown diabetes. All four of her babies were late and around 10lbs. Unfortunately, no matter how sick she’d get, she wouldn’t change her eating habits and take care of herself. By the time we moved to Florida she was on dialysis. About six months after starting dialysis she started getting these mysterious bruises. She went to the doctor and told us it was some kind of problem with Calcium and that she should not drink milk or eat bananas anymore. That’s all she told us about it and still continued to eat Calcium rich foods. One day she fell out of bed and hit her head. My sister had her taken to the hospital. That was my mom’s last trip in. I went to visit her and I knew something was wrong. They had a nurse staying in her room with her the whole time and she just didn’t seem right. (She didn’t hit her head that hard!) I called the doctor to find out what was going on. He told me she had Calciphylaxis and didn’t have very long to live. He gave us 6 months if we kept her on dialysis and a few weeks if we took her off. We decided to keep her on. The doctor was wondering why we weren’t in there visiting more often and I told him that we had no idea it was serious! Mom didn’t tell us she was dying. From that phone call everything became a fog. I missed a lot of work and couldn’t face anything. I couldn’t even get up the courage to tell my sister. A couple days later I ran into my sister in the hospital and we looked at each other. We both realized the other knew. It was time to call our brother and let him know. Mike made arrangements to come down on that Sunday. Charlie got a call Friday (we’re still not sure how the hospital called him) telling him that it was the end and we should come be with her. So my sister, nephew, Charlie and I went in and we each individually said our goodbyes and then were all there to be with her as she passed. My brother didn’t make it in time. We had no idea it would be so fast. All of this took place within 1 WEEK!

I think of my Mom all the time. I’ve been showing my kids pictures of her a lot lately and tell them how much their Grandma would love them and spoil them. So today while I get ready for Brandcation, I’ll be thinking of my mom and probably spending a good amount of time crying.

I’m not going to share the nastiness of calciphylaxis, but if you want to look it up, there’s some info on Wikipedia. It’s a hardening of the arteries with calcium.