Grieving...

January 14… is been a month today since mom died.  And all day today I’ve been living with her in my mind, and in my heart, and my soul had been weighted down by a quieted sorrow. 

Coincidentally, today we discovered something very strange that let us to believe that must probably our mother died of negligence by the personnel of the assisted living facility where she was living. 

The night before she died, dad took her blood pressure, which read very high.  Upon informing the employees who were taking care of her that night about it, the owner was called.  Our father was told by the owner that there was nothing to be worried about because mom was already taking medication for high blood pressure.  The following day, she died. 

After we buried our mother our father went back to the facility to collect mom’s belongings, but her blood pressure meter was not there.  He was told by one of the assistant that the owner had come by the night of mom’s death and had taken her blood pressure meter with her… The meter was returned to our father a few days later.  Dad never opened the case where the meter was kept, but today my sister was visiting dad, and she wasn’t feeling well and upon asking dad for mom’s blood pressure meter she discovered something very puzzling.  The meter’s memory had been wiped out (must probably by the owner herself).  But someone had taken the trouble to write by hand on the box our mother’s name and last name, the last time when her blood pressure was checked (that night before her death), and beside all that, it was also written: “Blood pressure 260/130 –she died the following day”.

Was someone trying to tell us something?  Perhaps her nurse, the woman in which arms mom died that following day?  By the way, that woman left her job right after mom died.  A total mystery to us.

Now we’re sure that mom died of an uncontrolled blood pressure that lead to an impending end-organ dysfunction and a heart attack.  Everyone at her assisted living facility should had known that hypertensive urgency indicates that the blood pressure is high enough to cause serious risk of sudden, life-threatening events, but no one worried about it or did anything.  Perhaps our mother didn’t had an organ failure or other immediately life-threatening conditions that very night, but because her blood pressure wasn’t quickly brought under control, it quickly developed into her death.

We were told that our mother died of a heart attack, but it could had been a number of so many other things… “Neurologic end-organ damage due to uncontrolled BP may include hypertensive encephalopathy, cerebral vascular accident/cerebral infarction, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and/or intracranial hemorrhage. Cardiovascular end-organ damage may include myocardial ischemia/infarction, acute left ventricular dysfunction, acute pulmonary edema, and/or aortic dissection. Other organ systems may also be affected by uncontrolled hypertension, which may lead to acute renal failure/insufficiency, retinopathy, eclampsia, or microangiopathic hemolytic anemia.  The history and the physical examination determine the nature, severity, and management of the hypertensive event. The history should focus on the presence of end-organ dysfunction, the circumstances surrounding the hypertension, and any identifiable etiology.”

But we don’t have any history, or medical report because an autopsy was never done.  I don’t know what to do, if left things as they are, if open an investigation or what… I’m grieving, and I think of her constantly.  Should I expand into sad events, into death or should I give thanks for how quickly and painlessly she departed this life?

My mind is in chaos my heart a dried rose.  I take comfort in knowing that the darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God…   or is it not?