Microblog Mondays: RIP to my MIL

Our dear Mel over at Stirrup Queens has begun a blog phenomenon... as she frequently does. 

Microblog Mondays. Writing in your own space. Something short and sweet. But it's meant to take back our bloggy space and call it our own. I am going to try to do this periodically. Life's hectic. So we'll see how long this lasts.

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A sad, and very difficult week in our house.

My MIL passed away last Monday afternoon, in the presence of her husband, her sister, one of her daughters, Hubby, and me.

She retired a few years ago, and had lost a significant amount of weight; I knew something was wrong but she was never fully tested. This past summer, they found a tumor and it was surgically removed, but no follow-up chemo or radiation was forthcoming. (We later found that it had been offered to her, but she turned it down. We question now whether she realized the ramifications of that particular decision. She was suffering from dementia on and off during this time because of the tumor.)

Post-op, she came home and was doing fairly well, but just before our Thanksgiving in early October, she took another turn for the worse and things went rapidly downhill from there. She was in the ICU and then transferred to a hospice. We did not expect her to live to see her 67th birthday on November 20. But she made it. She had asked Hubby for a piece of KFC and a Tim Horton's coffee a couple of days before her birthday and she enjoyed what she could eat of that... (translation: very little of either, but at least it was something).

On Monday past, November 24, 2014, my MIL's husband and a couple of the kids were to meet with the doctors at 3 p.m. to discuss her care and next steps. But that morning, Hubby's youngest sister called to verify that the meeting was still on and she was told, "Your mom's breathing has changed. Someone might want to get here sooner than 3 p.m." Hubby called me around 11:45. As soon as he told me that, I knew. You see, I've been down this road before. I knew exactly what the nurses were telling the family.

I told Hubby, "Hang up the phone. March straight to your boss' office and tell him it's an emergency. You need to leave RIGHT NOW. I will meet you there. Go." I did that as well, and I met him just before 1 p.m. at the doors to the hospice. We had barely over an hour with her; she took her last breath at 2:19 p.m. and amid tears, grief, love and pain, we said our goodbyes. Hubby and I left soon thereafter to get his youngest sister at home, and I stayed with the three young children so that his sis could go to the hospice with him. I called the funeral home and started the ball rolling from the home base. And it's been a whirlwind of a week since.

RIP Nicole. You are loved more than you can know and you will truly, truly be missed.

Our huge thanks to our friends and family who came to the celebration of her life this past Saturday; even our dear friends from Toronto (Pam and V) made the trek and we are ever so grateful. Seeing so many people there to pay their respects made it a little easier to say goodbye.

P.S. Thank you all for your sweet comments, e-mails, and thoughts on my last post about the weight loss and the negative comment I had received. You are all so very kind and I am grateful for your understanding and for your outpouring of love. (What a wonderful virtual world this is.)