I Feel Like I Killed My Mother
The guilt of placing my mother in a nursing home
My mother had advanced lung cancer due to a lifetime of smoking. She had reached the stage at which her oncologist recommended hospice because she could not tolerate the treatments. When she was lying down, like she had to do for the chemotherapy, the tumors would press on her trachea, leaving her unable to breathe.
We had also discovered that she had a large amount of fluid on her lungs that needed to be drained every other day by a nurse.
We agreed to hospice since there was nothing the oncologist could do for her.
The hospice people were associated with the same hospital group, so they quickly contacted us and told us that they would have the nurse out to see her every other day to drain the fluid on her lungs. Once a week the case manager and chaplain would visit to make sure her needs were being met.
This lasted for a week, and then the unthinkable happened. She didn’t use her walker when she went from her bedroom to the bathroom, and she fell.
I met the ambulance at the ER, and imaging confirmed our worst fears: she had broken her hip.
The ER doctor admitted her and said that the orthopedic surgeon would be in the next day to talk about surgery to…
