Hot Fun in the Wintertime!

This past weekend I got a chance to travel to Miami!!!!!!! It was my first time to the beautiful city. Unfortunately, it was rainy for most of the days we were there. But thankfully, the sun forced its way through the clouds long enough to shine and cover us with its love. What a joy it was to experience beautiful, winy, sunny weather in the winter time. Thank you Florida!!!!!!!
We were in Miami celebrating my friend’s Chad birthday. While I will not comment on the birthday celebrations or the people that were there to celebrate Chad’s birthday, I will talk about myself and what this trip meant for me.

Aside from the tropical winds and the occasional sun, the trip was filled with a lot of emotional ups and downs. What was I doing the whole time we were in Miami? You guessed it… I was thinking about Mama.

I was wishing that Mama was there with me to experience the wind, see the palm trees, smell the ocean, and enjoy the view from our 27th floor balcony. I wished she was there to tell me how glad she was to visit Florida for the first time in her life. But sadly, Mama never got a chance to visit Florida. And she never got a chance to take a “real” vacation with me.

By the time I was old enough and had enough money to invest in travel and vacation, Mama had her first stroke. It was a downhill slide for her health once that happened.

Here’s what I decided when I turned 40… I decided to visit somewhere I had not been at least once a year for the rest of my life or until my health fails me. When I turned 40, I went to New Orleans. Last year, I went to Miami. I’m trying to decide where I will pilgrimage to this year. I’ll keep you updated.

And when I go, I’ll be thinking of Mama. But I’ve now decided that instead of feeling sad that she’s not with me, I’ll be enjoying life in her honor. I’ll take every advantage of “living” that my mother didn’t get a chance to do.

So, here’s to the next trip!!!!!!! Can’t wait to live it up for myself and Mama!!!!!!!

Both a Savior and a Killer

Even though I am completely aware of the multiple co-morbidities my mother possessed prior to death, I can’t help not feeling that a drug that was given to her to save her life was the actual cause of her death. What was the drug?
Brilinta: A drug given to patients after a heart attack of heart surgery to prevent a heart attack and/or stroke. The drug is supposed to prevent the formation of blood clots.

But as we all know, the most well intentioned and high performing drugs come with possible adverse side effects that can even lead to death. And sadly, my mom fell prey to the most adverse side effect listed on the website for the drug. https://www.brilinta.com/safety-and-side-effects/side-effects.html

My mother died of acute blood loss, which I believe was caused by the Brilinta. Prior to being diagnosed with Brilinta, she had no trouble with major bleeds in the GI track. But since March, almost a month after having heart surgery and being prescribed Brilinta, the episodes of acute blood loss started occurring quite frequently. The doctors would stop the blood thinner (Brilinta), but would warn us that she could have a stroke or a heart attack for not being on the drug. Then once the bleeding was under control, they would put her back on the drug to prevent a fatal cardiac event. But what would happen a month later? She would be bleeding internally all over again.

It was an awful see saw of treatment methods to try to save her life. If she didn’t take the medicine, they were sure she would die. If she did take the medicine, they weren’t sure of much. I say this because they could never track the bleeding. They would just give her blood transfusions until the blood count would increase and then hold steady at a manageable level.

This most recent time, her blood loss was massive. She had lost so much blood, the doctors were shocked she was still alive. The doctors said she was surviving on a fourth of what a normal person has in their body. They told us she needed five pints of blood products transfused in her body to save her life.

But my mom guaranteed her death by refusing to continue with another round of blood transfusions. This time, she said no to any medical interventions to save her life. The doctors still had no clue where she was bleeding from. And my mom was tired and ready to go. So, the doctors respected her wishes and sent the blood products back to wherever they came from. And less than 24-hours later, my mother was dead.

My heart grieves as I write this because I know that Brilinta, the drug that the docs gave her to save her life, was the drug that ended her life. How freaking ironic?

I’m not mad at the manufacturers of the drug though. I’m not mad at the doctors that prescribed the medicine. I’m not even mad at my mom for refusing the blood transfusions.

I’m just mad. Not sure at what or who though…

I’m for sure mad that my mother is gone.

I wish there was no need for Brilinta. I wish that my mom never needed a blood transfusion. I just wish that my mom was healthy, well, and right here with me.

With all of that being said, I do plan to report to the FDA that I believe that my mom died because of the adverse effect of Brilinta. I think it is important for the FDA to keep a documented count of the patients that did not respond well to this drug.

Here’s the FDA website that I’m using to make the report.
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/HowToReport/ucm337471.htm

One Death of Two Mothers

When my mother had her first stroke thirteen years ago, so much of her personality traits, critical understanding, and innate gifts were forever buried by the brain damage caused by the stroke. When she first came home from the hospital, she was simply a shell of a woman. Well, I should say that she was a shell of the woman I knew. Her idiosyncrasies, vigorous laugh, bold wisdom, and basic understanding of the world around her were snatched away by one tiny, microscopic blood clot that got lodged in her brain.

When she got well enough to be discharged from the hospital to home care, I had to sit down with her each day and remind her that she was a teacher, an American, and a musician. The one thing I didn’t have to remind her was that she was a mom. She didn’t know what planet she lived on, but she did know the names of each of her daughters. That’s how incredibly important we, my sisters and I, were to our newly disabled mom.

Although Mama remembered us, she didn’t respond to us in the same way. She would sit in an almost lifeless manner and just say nothing. Her personality seemed as if it was robbed from her by some weird alien being, who snuck to our planet and zapped her soul away.

I pushed, probed, and nudged at her to laugh, to smile, to remember, to even cry. But despite my best efforts, in the first six months post stroke, she just sat there, not mumbling more than a few words a day. She had no requests, no distinct memories, no likes, no dislikes, no regrets, no aspirations, no real self concept.

I honestly feel that my mother… At least, a great portion of my mother died August 2, 2002 when she had the stroke. I grieved for six months over the death of the woman I knew as mom. I would cry, ache, and wish that I could just have one conversation with her. I wanted to hear her sing, laugh, tell a story, teach a lesson, or even fuss at me.

I didn’t understand how or why I was grieving for her so intensely, yet she was sitting in my living room for most of the day. How was I grieving a woman that was still alive? And even though I didn’t understand it then, I was indeed experiencing real grief. Mama had not died per say. She had absolutely changed so drastically, her new persona was not recognizable.

After my grief began to lift after about six months, I had to learn to love the new woman that had emerged during the year of physical, occupational, and speech therapy. This new woman was temperamental, impatient, sorrowful, depressed, and less amused than mom pre-stroke. But I decided to love her yet and still. I knew that underneath the splash of blood in her brain that had drowned a large portion of her intrinsic traits, the woman I would always know as “mother” was there. She was just hidden.

So, I ended up loving two women: Mom pre-stroke and Mom post-stroke. And I must say it was an honor to love and be loved by both.

I suspect that now I’m grieving two women. Perhaps that’s why I’m hurting so badly. In my psyche, I have memories of two women I called mother. And now, both of those women… Both of those mothers… Both of those loving figures are gone.

I need much prayer and support as I adjust to this new normal.