Psych Essay - Copd

A week before the Fall semester started, my Mom entered the hospital for shortness of breath. This was no big surprise, because my Mom had been living with COPD for some time now, and also enjoyed her 2 packs of cigarettes a day. Hospitals were a common thing for us. I already knew the layout, what questions to ask and how to care for her. The ER Doctor came back with her prognosis of bronchitis, no surprise. Later on that evening, I received a call that my Mother had required a rapid response team, and was being placed on the ventilator. This was new, and scary. After a week of trials and tribulation my Mother was successfully weaned and was breathing on her own. Over the next couple of days she quickly returned to her normal self, and my comfort level had returned as well. She was set to be released on the following Friday, and she was so ready to get home. That night, no one really knows what happened from point A to point B, but within 24 hours my Mother died from internal bleeding.

My mother never got to go through the 5 stages of dying. It seemed like a split second, and she was gone. I wish that I could say that her death was peaceful and could be considered an 'Easy Death." But it wasn't. In the 24 hours that preceded her death, she went through 3 codes, hours of dialysis and 14 blood transfusions.

In my first hour's home after losing my Mother, I thought that I wanted to sleep. I had been up for a solid 24 hours and was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. I laid in bed, but couldn't shake the sounds of the alarms that had engrained themselves into my subconscious. I hadn't cried yet. I was completely in a state of denial and thrust into the Stages of Grief. Instead of sleeping, I got up and made a pan of muffins, which I couldn't eat. For months after my Mother's death, I kept her clothes and few belongings that she had, almost as if she were coming back. Still to this day, I have a pair of her shoes and reading glasses packed away in my closet.

Pretty quickly, denial started to fade and I entered the Anger stage. I have never felt so failed by the Doctors and Nurses and staff at the Hospital. How could they have been so lax to have let my Mother die? How could I have been so selfish to have not stayed with her in the Hospital that night? Why did no one listen to my Mother when she complained of pain? I'm pretty sure that for the first couple of months I survived on Anger alone. I can't say that I'm completely past this stage yet.

I've yet to go through a Bargaining stage. I associate that to the fact that I really don't have a very strong religious background. However, I believe that I am in a transition period of Anger and Depression. Holidays are almost unbearable, knowing that my Mom will not be there. Kubler- Ross explains that in the stage of Depression, that it is natural to feel sadness, regret, fear and uncertainty. I