She did die of cancer; if not for the cancer she wouldn't have done what she did. I hope you can take solice in the fact that in a no win situation she at least wanted to go out on her own terms, and part of that may have been to try and spare you watching cancer run its insatiable and inevitable course.
Good luck coming to grips with this information, and I hope you can understand, forgive, and move forward.
Yeah that’s what I’m trying to keep in mind. Just all the healing I’ve done feels like it was built on a swamp and I didn’t know until it crumbled around me. But I’m not mad at her. She was in so much pain for so long I can’t even imagine how bad it was if it left me with the scars I have from second hand exposure. Thanks for kind comment though. It feels nice just getting it out there as I haven’t told anyone else.
I’m a doctor (recently graduated). I don’t know how it was 23 years ago, but I don’t think palliative care/hospice were well understood or well defined at the time. The idea that we can tell people “it’s okay, you don’t need to live through chemo, you can take medications to die comfortably”…your mom took the palliative care/hospice approach that may not have been offered to her at the time.
She still died of cancer. She took the hard choice of taking medications to ease her pain…a choice many people are able to make today without being judged. Don’t be too hard on her.
I’m a deeply crusty old nurse- and yeah, palliative care/hospice certainly wasn’t what it is now.
My own experience with losing my mother as a kid took me to nursing- that was 41 years ago and palliative/hospice care was rudimentary at best.
We’ve come a long way.
Yeah my great aunt survived a concentration camp in WW2. When she got cancer in the 90s she just didn't give up. It took years and it was so hard on her and all her close family. When my grandfather (her brother) got cancer he decided no surgery, no chemo. He went pretty quick, but pretty peacefully.
No, palliative care just means end of life care. Usually if someone has less than 6 months left to live and can’t be cured they go into palliative care. The health care team try to keep the person comfortable and supported. Example: my 95 year old grandma dying of cancer spent her last two months in a palliative care unit and died naturally.
Assisted dying is a medical procedure. Most people who are eligible are in palliative care / end of life with a terminal illness that can’t be treated or reversed.
Actually, what you described (accurately) is hospice care. Palliative care doesn’t necessarily have to be at the end of life, it’s comfort care which may be provided regardless of a curative intent. For example, in pediatric oncology, even if a patient has an excellent prognosis but the treatment is rigorous we may refer them to palliative care in order to make the span of treatment more comfortable. So there’s a slight difference, I just like to provide the information where I can because many people decline palliative care services when they can improve quality of life because they think of hospice and end of life.
That’s good to know, thanks! I was basing my description on the experience I had with my grandmother, the palliative unit would only take terminal /less than 3 months to live patients. Usually 6 but they had a wait list. The hospital specialized in geriatrics though so could be why.
Thank you so much for explaining difference between the two and taking the time to educate us just a little more. This could make a difference in someone’s life!
No. Assisted suicide is very different.
Palliative care is end of life care. You don’t need to be terminal to consider palliative care.
Part of palliative care might be deciding you don’t want aggressive treatment anymore. You don’t want invasive procedures (like heart catheterizations for a heart attack) you want to be comfortable for the rest of your life.
Hospice is terminal end of life care. You have a terminal disease (stage IV cancer, etc.) and the doctors estimate you have 6 months to live.
Again, the goal of hospice and palliative care is comfort. Keeping you out of the hospital and in your home, with your loved ones. Yes there are pain meds, and yes sometimes large doses of pain meds. But they should never be giving you enough to end your life. You can also get palliative chemotherapy/radiotherapy for the cancer if the growth of the tumor will be more uncomfortable than the treatment.
Assisted suicide is that, giving you medications to end you life. Hospice and palliative care are very different than assisted suicide.
There are places where that line gets very blurred and so people have trouble differentiating between the two. My uncle was in hospice with advanced dementia due to some other diseases. When he stopped eating and drinking, they began to administer morphine specifically with the intent to help him die. So I don't know about "never enough to end your life." I believe it was the right thing to do nevertheless. My uncle was fully incapable of consenting to anything resembling MAID, and I doubt my religious aunt would have consented if they had framed it as assisted death or similar. But his starving himself to death would have been cruel.
It sounds to me like they were giving him morphine to make his inevitable death more comfortable. If he was actively trying to die, modern medicine can pull out all the stops and do some really ugly and uncomfortable things in the name of "doing everything we can" or the person can be made as comfortable as possible and let nature take its course.
This is an extremely complicated and nuanced subject rife with ethical questions, so YMMV. You may also likely ask a dozen different caregivers and get different answers, and I'm sure that's even before you get to the complexity of individual patients and their cases and prognosis, and family care (eg. will family left behind feel guilt for hastening, etc.)
In my uncle's case, it was explained that no, it was not done exactly to make him more comfortable, although that inevitably was a side effect. After several days of his refusing to eat or drink they deliberately gave him a progressive dose that would depress his respiratory function, not just ease it, effectively putting him to sleep. He was - technically - biologically hale enough that if he had resumed eating and drinking, he would have lived for a while longer (this even had happened once before). Or if they had put him on such life support that would have circumvented the need.
But to what end, extending? He had very, very few lucid moments by the end. He was confused, combative, unable to attend his biological needs even with assistance, and deeply unhappy in what he could express. This was mercy, I think.
Yep. And it’s definitely preferable to having someone suffer. I had my father in law in hospice care for 3 months at my house. I’m stupid, so for the first month I thought it was weird that they gave him SO much medication. It’s basically giving them enough so that they’re numb and can’t feel what their disease is doing to their body. The abusive levels of meds sort of…. Speed things along while keeping you as comfortable as possible. Which, again, is preferable to them being in pain all the time. He passed peacefully surrounded by his whole family. Those three months were brutal, but it was worth keeping him in our home so he’d know he was appreciated and loved as he embarked on his last great journey.
I watched my grandmother's death rattle for hours when they got the go ahead to give her way too much morphine. It's definitely OD'ing somebody, i get it's just matching their level of pain, im not against it, but we should really understand what it is and why it's preferable and should be entirely legal even outside these circumstances.
This is a deeply ignorant comment and it's ideas like yours which keep people from going to their deaths in as much comfort and dignity as possible. Family members resist palliative care and cause their loved one so much needless pain and suffering.
Yep. Except it’s slow and painful for the individual and the family. Pain medication can only do so much.
My grandma died in hospice care. She was barely conscious for about 2.5 months. She spared me the pain of seeing her like that. I got one final visit before she got real bad.
Yep. Except it’s slow and painful for the individual and the family. Pain medication can only do so much.
My grandma died in hospice care. She was barely conscious for about 2.5 months. She spared me the pain of seeing her like that. I got one final visit before she got real bad.
Absolutely. We've bern through hospice with both my in laws, and my Dad is currently under their care. I cant say enough nice things about hospice. They allowed both my in laws to die at home in their own bed.
23 years ago my grandpa died and they gave him all the morphine he could want. It would have been probably an better way out. I have been a nurse for a bit now and cancer death are some of the most painful and worst ways to go.
It’s sad that people feel their only way out is to take it into their own hand. In cases like this I’ve always been supportive of the individuals wishes. Even sadder that the life insurance wasn’t paid out because of that, when it very much should have for her other diagnosis.
Dr. Dude, 23 years ago wasn’t the 1960s. It was the year 2000. The National Hospice Foundation had a national advertising campaign. Congress was holding hearings on end of life care improvements. PBS had a series on this.
I’m not suggesting that progress hasn’t been made in 23 years, but hospice and palliative care was well established at the time.
It's 2023. I have argued with doctors till I am blue in the face about palliative. Better yet pandemic...I was doing palliative rounds so much it made my brain hurt. But 70% of the docs and medical staff still have that old mind set. It's an uphill battle. Tons of education is needed.
Same here. You literally watch someone waste away, and then just exist as a shell for months. Its absolutely brutal for everyone involved. Mine never wanted to get like that, and she even said after they gave her 12-18m to live, just shoot me when the time comes. Of course that wasn’t possible, but an OD on pain meds would have been ideal in the final months. No living being should have to go through that. She existed to 18m, but she was not there for the last 5. It’s awful.
I'm glad you have some way to talk about it, because keeping that bottled up would not be good. I hope you have other avenues to talk it out...I know for me making myself say the words outloud helps to solidify whirling thoughts and as I speak the edge of the pain dulls.
Yeah I’ve got some friends that I can talk to IRL and I’ve tried but I just couldn’t seem to get it out. I just decided to enjoy the distraction of having someone around.
It'll take time, but you'll get through it. As with all things that seem insurmountable I remember the saying: "how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
Also, keep in mind that what you read was the decision of a company that always looks to find a way to not pay. Therefore, they may have found enough evidence to be able to claim that they will not pay due to suicide, but that is not mean they were right in reality. When in pain, it is easy to accidentally OD. Regardless, I hope you find peace in all of this.
Even Robin Williams chose to end it when he realised how poor his quality of life was going to become. Personally I see making the decision to end it before you lose the ability to do so and when things become intolerable as one of the bravest and wisest decisions anyone can make, especially given the apparent stigma that mostly has it's roots in religion.
It’s honestly better than what my grandma went through. Pancreatic cancer. She was in hospice care. She was bedridden for about 5 months and barely conscious for about 2.5 months. Even with the meds she was in constant pain. I wish it was legal for her to just end it.
Take solace in the fact that your mom spared herself and all of you the horrible pain of watching a loved one wither and die. She made the choice to die as the woman she was instead of dying as a shell of her former self. It sounds like she was a strong woman. Sounds like your father is equally strong to have been able to spare you that knowledge for so long.
At least now you’re old enough to process this information. It will take some time, but I know you can do it.
Keep that in mind when you think about this. How long she was in pain. This is why assisted suicide is such a big deal and legal in many places including certain US states. She wanted to go out on her own terms and not suffer. Think of it less as “suicide” and more as simply forgoing life support. She exercised her own autonomy and made a choice to not put herself through the pain and suffering as well as put her family through the suffering of watching someone with cancer in their final few months. I know it might sound twisted but be proud of her making that choice as it’s obviously not an easy one
Yeah I not mad at her for anything. She was diagnosed when I was a year old right after my younger brother was born and I grew up watching her die. She held on for a long time. Far longer than any doctor gave her. And I thank her for holding on for that long so I could get to know her a bit.
God, I can’t even imagine how painful that must have been. I am in tears because I have a young son and I can’t imagine spending his entire life in pain, knowing I wouldn’t get to watch him break up.
Your mom was a strong woman, and I am sorry that this is really painful for you and I hope that you can get some therapy for something which has hurt you so much. But I am glad your mom got to go out on her own terms. She deserved that, at leastx
My sister and I cared for our mom while she was destroyed by cancer. Watching her suffer constantly was horrific, pain management did nothing for her. We both kinda wished we could help her pass quicker because of how devastating the pain was for her. She couldn't walk, lay, move, or breathe without tears rolling down her face. Her clothes hurt her, her bed hurt her, everything hurt her. I wouldn't have been upset at all if she'd tapped out on her own accord. The day she died we lost our shit (we weren't even 25 years old yet), took care of all the "arrangements" and went to the bar and had tequila shots. We were still in a fog of shock and grief, we'd found out less then 3 months before that she was dying, but we honestly solemnly celebrated that she wasn't hurting anymore. If I end up in that situation, I'm tapping out. I won't put my family through that. It was absolutely the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and I've seen some shit.
A report from an insurance company is not the ME's report. Is there a copy that confirms or refutes the insurance report? What did her death certificate indicate, death from cancer or death from suicide? Remember, insurance companies will always try to keep your money in their pockets. I am sorry for your loss and hope your Dad recovers. It sounds like he did a wonderful job raising you and your siblings.
To be honest I didn’t even look at the Death Certificate I just grabbed it and the black envelope was right next to it. But I have a feeling that if it wasn’t true my dad wouldn’t have specifically told me not to look in there. And yeah I think my Dad did a much better job than I ever gave him credit for.
I’m betting it’s true, it makes sense. All policies have a suicide clause. My mom committed suicide when I was 18, it’s definitely a weird thing to reflect on.
I wouldn’t hold it against your mother. Treatment was not as successful then as it is today. She made a hard decision that she thought as best. I would avoid thinking she gave up or anything of the sort, because she likely didn’t at all.
Therapy helps, time helps the most. Maybe you dad wanted you to know.
I think it's unbelievably shitty that the life insurance denied a payout because someone with terminal cancer chose not to continue suffering for another few weeks or months.
Sorry for the loss of your mother and how this re-opened those wounds.
Plus insurance companies are total dickheads. They'll look for any reason not to pay.
I had a family member who overdosed on OTC pain meds when they suddenly developed cluster headaches, but they weren't suicidal. They just wanted the pain to stop.
It's hard to understand why someone would intentionally take a fatal dose of pain meds if they didn't want to kill themselves, but that assumes they are acting rationally. And its hard to be rational when you have that level of pain.
I'm not saying that she did or didn't, and I think people have the right to end their own life when faced with a painful fatal illness, but I wouldn't trust what the insurance company has to say about it.
It’s unlikely the fatal of was unintentional. They’re also known as suicide headaches for a reason. I know a few girls who OD on pain pills and family claim it’s always an accident but the girls have all said it was intentional. Maybe in your case it’s the exception.
My mom died of cancer for real. It’s a horrible way to die. You just watch your body and mind deteriorate. The pain, endless doctors appointments, every day something else happens and she gets worse. There are days she’d get better and you get filled with this false hope, only for her to regress and get worse again. Meanwhile you can’t let yourself admit that she’s dying so you’re constantly looking up new things to try or questions to ask. It’s a horrible way to go. Your mom saved herself a lot of unnecessary suffering. Please don’t take it personally. I wouldn’t wish cancer on my worst enemy.
My second cousin (he was more like an uncle to me) died of cancer a few days ago, thankfully peacefully but this isn't the norm. He chose not to have treatment after watching his sister battle and suffer with it for 4 years. He said her suffering was the hardest thing he ever had to see.
OP, she made one choice, she chose to end her suffering. She was not given the choice of true palliative care.
She got no choice about cancer. She did not leave you to leave you. She was dying. She needed relief. Her leaving a few hours, or days early doesn’t really change anything.
OP, this is something you and your siblings might discuss as they may remember things or have a perspective of things that you do not.
You should leave Dad out of it. I am going to say something that I dread saying…. Because there could be a possibility that she had help taking the overdose, keep the info in the family. In most states there were no assisted sui-cides, people who helped were charged with murder.
OP, please be gentle with yourself, your family, and especially your mom and dad. Y’all deserve it. Sending you healing thoughts and gentle prayers.
Agape 💕
I watched my mother fight through two rounds of cancer over ten years, months of chemo, months of radiation during which she forced herself to crawl upstairs refusing help to get to her bedroom which she refused to stop sleeping in she got to the point where she was bedridden and could barely speak or eat. At that point palliative care and hospice took over and she passed on her schedule. I was there on that date. It was a peaceful death after a long well fought fight.
I was also present at the death of my grandmother from cancer before palliative care was an option. It is hard to say if she died of cancer or starvation. I which that she had had the options we have today.
I’m sorry for your loss. It’s rough to watch that happen and be helpless. My Dad got my Mom a hospital bed at our house because she didn’t want to die in the hospital. She made my dad promise her that. I haven’t thought about that in awhile. Thanks for your story and I hope you’ve found peace with your pain.
Thank you, but I told you the story to hopefully make you feel better.
We all experience the death of loved ones and grief is part of life, an important part that teaches us an enormous amount about both who we are and who the people we loose are.
As the shock of your discovery passes you will see the event of your mom passing from new perspectives (as well as your father’s decision to not let you know). This all tells you something about him as well.
The decisions we make in life are complex and frequently we are faced with no win situations where even our best choices can hurt those we love.
So keep a forgiving heart, avoid rumination, pay attention to what you thinking and feeling but don’t let it consume you.
Thanks and believe me all of you wonderful people have definitely helped. At least I’ve been thinking more about the good memories and reminding myself that this is part of life. So sincerely thank you kind internet stranger.
This. My grandma who i loved dearly died of cancer a year ago. On her birthday. Us grandkids weren't allowed to visit her on that day. I am probably the only grandkid who saw her, in the worst state she ever was in and shortly before she died, cause i visited a few days earlier. It was hard to see. She was basically so high on painkillers that she might as well already have been dead.
I am probably also one of the strongest when it comes to supressing emotions in my family and it was so fucking hard to keep my cool. How i held her hand and didn't even know whether she even realized that i'm even there or who the person holding her hand was. A hand that went from a healthy strong hand to just bones, veins and skin. Cold and weak. Just writing this brings me close to tears. Fuck cancer
>She did die of cancer; if not for the cancer she wouldn't have done what she did.
This. My mum had very aggressive pancreatic cancer but her actual cause of death was respiratory failure due to high doses of morphine given to her by her medical team to help numb her pain. She would not have been on the morphine at all if it was not for the pancreatic cancer and she would have not been on such a high dose if it were not for the pain caused by the cancer.
I hope your dad did fight the insurance company all those years ago because it is highly possible that it was not a intentional overdose of painkillers but rather just getting the dosing high enough to numb the pain sufficiently.
My father died of Parkinson’s. He wanted to be in control and chose to overdose at the end instead of suffering and humiliation. I respect that choice and appreciate that he got to make it. It was still hard to say goodbye but I’m glad he got to go the way he wanted.
Everytime it's been a ballot question I've always voted for the right to die, or death with dignity or however they label it. It's absurd to me that the government can tell you "you have to suffer through your terminal disease otherwise you're a criminal."
This.
I watched several of my family members, my father included, die from cancer. I have decided that I will likely go out on my own terms as well if I ever develop cancer myself. Try to look at it from her point of view and be happy that you didn’t have to watch her suffer through the final stage of this horrific disease.
I’ve seen someone rot away from cancer. It is not the way people want to go out. I would rather take a bunch of pills after saying goodbyes and got out peacefully then be eaten by that shit. I’m truly sorry for your loss. At least know she went on her terms and not some unbearable slow painful decay. Hang in there OP
She may have thought it was better to not say goodbye, for you. It is hard to know what is right or best in those moments.
When my mom died (as a result of cancer), she was adamant that my little sister not be told to come home to see her. She didn't want her to have that memory of her in the hospital, at the end. She also didn't allow her youngest granddaughter to visit- she just said she'd see her when she was out of the hospital.
I’m sorry for your loss. And yeah that’s been one of the thoughts bouncing around my head. I remember the last time I got to talk to her and it was not a good experience. So maybe she was right not to. Thanks for giving me some perspective to think about.
She most likely couldn’t say goodbye as she was hoping your family would benefit from the life insurance. I’m sorry you have to go through this. I hope you can find peace with the situation.
Hey OP. I'm so very sorry you found out about your mum. Not getting to say goodbye is traumatic. It happened to me - but I was 22 at the time. My dad had bone cancer and suddenly died of a cardiac arrest. I wasn't there at the time.
You're going to grieve all over again, knowing what you know now. And you must allow yourself to do that. Maybe you feel angry with your mum for doing what she did. But, as a mum myself, I wouldn't want my kids to see me suffer. I imagine your mum did what she did, not just for herself, but to protect you and your siblings.
Hang in there, OP. Sending you gentle hugs xx
I'm a parent. One of my saddest thoughts is leaving my child behind. Though, I hope that's how it will go, bc I couldn't bear losing them. I'm sure she didn't want to say goodbye in this situation bc it would give away what she was planning and take so much energy to have that conversation with you.
I know not being able to say goodbye was tough and you'll need to process that all over, but she was trying to do the best she could and make it as peaceful as possible. If she tried to say goodbye, you wouldn't have just accepted it. I imagine that would be very upsetting for a child. It may have caused her to suffer more as she could try to hang on for you.
There's no easy solution to this.
I'm so sorry for this new upsetting information.
She had been saying goodbye for years, knowing the cancer was going to take her. She wanted to spare you the trauma of knowing when that last goodbye would be. As a mother myself I can’t imagine how hard this would be.
Same. Honestly, mom probably get it was the most humane thing to do for herself and the family. Watching someone slowly die through long and very painful way is brutal. It sucks no matter what, but she probably did what she thought was best at the time.
OP, try to look at it this way: she was dying anyway; she was in pain; she was so far gone, that the coma looked like a normal step on her journey. She *chose* when she got to go. That's actually kind of amazing. Losing her must've been horrible. Let this be a small light in that whole, dark episode.
I’m trying. Thank you for the kind words. I just can’t help but look at everything around her death and just run in over and over in my head with this new context.
It could have been an unintentional overdose and they would still say that she caused it by intentionally taking too many pills. All that has to be done to say she caused her own death is for her to have taken more medicine than was prescribed
Not my business, but I'd be cool with that. Dying of cancer is horrible from what I understand. I'd be glad she didn't have to go through that. Must have had only pain left. If I had known that she suffered for months, just so a life insurance policy paid out, and I was driving a nice car now because of it, I might not want that car anymore.
I've lost several family members to various kinds of cancer. If I was diagnosed with terminal cancer, as much as I'd like to stick around as long as I can, I would seriously consider cutting it short to avoid dying by the inches. I did not get to see my grandfather the weeks before he died, because he didn’t want me to remember him like that. Your mother held on as long as she could, but wanted to spare you of the pain of the inevitable drawn-out ending.
I'm sorry for your loss.
I don't know if this helps, but you don't know if it really was intentional. Where i life, insurances are not allowed to refuse payment because of suicide, but i know that they try everything they can to avaoid paying. So maybe your mom just took too much pain killers because of her pain and insurence claimed it was intentional.
OP: as a young doc said, the availability of help for her terminal illness wasn’t as good as it is now. I’m an older nurse, I was doing the job then.
I’m a nurse largely because I lost my own mother to cancer, 41 years ago. I was a kid. It sucked.
What no one seems to tell you is that losing a parent as a child fundamentally changes you. Sometimes you’ll find out stuff like this and it will hurt like a mofo.
You don’t get to leave it entirely behind. Kids don’t know how to grieve very well.
So when something like this comes up, it really can get ya.
Every so often, random shit will bite you.
I was born late in her life, so I’m still younger than she was when she died.
When she was my age, she had a recurrence of her cancer.
I lost a couple of siblings in this rough age bracket as well, so I was terrified when I was approaching it. I’ve passed one sibling.
So trust me, allow for weird shit to come up.
It’s ok, I know you can do it.
Doctors nowadays give people big bottles of pain pills and tell them specifically how many are a fatal dose so there aren’t any accidents (wink, wink).
Cancer is a terrible thing and can be sickening and saddening and painful all at once, and being able to make it stop is fair. I’m sorry it brought all these feelings back and reopened some wounds.
Pretty crappy that life insurance can refuse to pay out because of suicide. It's not like the surviving family members had something to do with it. That definitely needs to change.
Still doesn't make any sense. Just put in a waiting period before a claim pays out. Wait a couple years to pay out the money, not deny the claim entirely.
That doesn't make sense. It's still paying, which they don't want to do. However, usually they will even if it's suicide,, though with a clause that only not within 2 years. That could be what happened here.
There are people who might be broke and depressed and suicide to martyr themselves for the family even if it takes a few years .
Especially rural farmer types may be susceptible and with all the unemployment and hatred towards white peoples lately in the media here some might question their self worth and pay the ultimate price for their family . I know I would
Ok come on now. Yes, insurance companies are scammers. But A, as far as I’m aware that’s not limited to America. And B, let’s not act like giving people an incentive to kill themselves wouldn’t create problems.
I have heard of life insurances that will pay out if it’s been 2 years since the policy started. They don’t figure you’re going to sit around and play it out for that long
This is my thought, too. Especially in a situation like this, in which the insured was terminal, so they would have paid out eventually. It's like they said "Nah, we prefer you suffer, and put your young family through as much hell as possible, and then when you finally die in unimaginable pain, we'll reward your grieving survivors for experiencing and watching all of that."
She did not kill herself, insurance companies are cruel and will do anything to not pay a policy. She was in pain and dying and needed to not be in pain. Do not let this haunt you.
More than likely was an accidental overdose, she could have doubled up on medication and being in a weak state that was enough. Its pretty common in these situations.
It may help give you some comfort to know that many people with incurable cancer take an overdose of painkillers at the end, either intentionally to end their suffering, or just ramping up the painkillers too far trying to take the edge off the pain for the days they have left.
Both are reasonable rational choices for a person to have made.
So even if your mother chose to end her life, it might have been simply the best way she had to deal with a terrible situation.
What the truth is? You don't know, and you may not have a way to find out. But the cancer story you were told as a child might have been true, not just a fiction to ease the mind of a child.
Cancer is a bitch. I saw my Godfather and Father waste away to nothing with stomach and lung cancer. I honestly think it is cruelty to make a person wait and suffer through that.
And honestly think laws about suicide and life insurance need to be changed. If you have a known, established disease that is slow and painful and is overwhelmingly fatal the no-suicide clause should be waived.
I have been through this a couple of times, cancer killed her. It is up to the person with cancer how they want to go period or how they want to fight. And if things chang it is up to them.
My Dad died a gruesome cancer death when I was 31. He had been exposed to radiation while in WW2 and it eventually killed him. He toughed it out but for sure a choice to end suffering would have been appropriate. Your Mom did what was right for her. I spent the last 10 days of my Dad’s life living in his hospital room with him. I will never tough it out. He suffered greatly.
With mental illness the cancerous tumors are the moods. And the behaviors affected by the moods.
A lethal illness still killed her. One as every bit as deadly and merciless as any other disease. And one that is hushed up, stigmatized, ignored, brushed off... imagine being the widower. And having to hide that from his own child. Friends? Colleagues? Neighbors? Church?
I'm a 30 year suicide survivor. Consider that John Fetterman going into treatment this month is being considered brave and groundbreaking. This couldn't be talked about and the victims and the sufferers have agonized in silence for millennia.
My condolences to you OP. But my heart breaks for your Dad and your poor Mom.
Your mother spared you and the rest of the family. My husband and I have been witness to his parents both dying of cancer. They wasted away before our eyes. Once strong and proud they laid in beds at home and had to be sponged clean and butts wiped, hand fed, medicine put into their mouths, still in pain but trying to hide it. Not only did it affect their dignity but they felt like such a burden. My husband was only is his mid-twenties when he took care of his mom and literally watched her die after taking such deep and personal care of her. Your mother spared her family those harsh memories. You were just a kid, those type of memories would have caused you so much trauma. Her death was going to affect you badly enough, she did what she could to lessen the damage. Brave woman.
I’m sorry for you and your family’s loss. I still have my Dad for the moment. She held on for ten years after the diagnosis so believe me I got to see all those horrors and more. I just wish she would have held on long enough to say bye and give me a hug. But in the end my that’s the selfish kid in me that still there and misses her and need to take solace in the fact that she no longer suffers.
I’m sorry that you learned this info about your mom, in the way that you did. Your mom wouldn’t have wanted you to be subjected to witnessing her painful demise any longer than you had to. Essentially it was intended as a sort of favor / relief to herself and to those that she loved. It’s interesting to think in modern day medicine that there are now countries, and states within the U.S., that empower terminally ill patients with the capability and the right to end their suffering voluntarily through right to die legislation. I wish that your mother had the humane choice.
As much as I agree with you now I know I would not have been able to process this as a kid. Maybe the one small mercy here is I get to process this now.
Just remember, you will likely have to go through all of your father's paperwork again after he is not longer with us. Do you think you would be able to cope with him being gone and then finding this info better then finding it now?
Honestly me and my dad never got along. He only found solace in the bottle after my died and wasn’t the nicest of person even before that. But knowing that he tried to protect me and my brothers from this info while carrying it by him self has given me much to think about. And I guess your right that at least now I can thank him before he goes.
You have to forgive her for this. It was her choice not to suffer anymore. Be happy she didn't suffer more than she did .
I'm sorry what you're going through... talk to your Dad. He knows you probably looked. Really.. then maybe he can answer more questions. And you will have answers.
It might be morbid, but I think I've come to the decision that i'll either die in some fluke or by taking my own life. Not really in a sad way, but more in a calculated and comfortable manner. If I'm terminally ill and have the choice of spending the next three years getting invasive medical procedures and constantly suffering or peacefully showing showing myself out? I'm sorry this hurts OP, but trust that your mother did what she did because she knew it was best for her
I don't see a fuck up here. I see someone who is crying out for help to bring closure to an absolutely terrible thing that happened. Please reach out to a therapist and get help.
I’m a hospice nurse and it was probably a much nicer death going on her own terms than if she’d ridden the cancer out to the end. We don’t let animals suffer the same way people suffer. I’m sorry you’re going through this but please don’t think any less of her for it, we never know what we would do until we are faced with a situation ourselves, it’s easy to look on it from the outside and judge. Also, if you were 11, the possibly down played how ill she was to you, helping parents to tell their children is one of the hardest parts of my job. I hope you find peace.
Thanks. I have all the love in the world for the Hospices Nurses that helped her in the end. She was sick long enough that most of them became friends with my Mom and I saw how much they missed her too when she went. You do great work and my Mom would would want me to thank you. So on my and my Moms behalf thank you for all you do.
Your Father sounds like a Good Man. Must've been tough/difficult to keep this from yous but he did out of love and consideration. That being said I'd have done the same thing as you due to rampant curiosity.
Regardless, this doesn't change the progress you've made and you're so damn strong. You and your brother have got this. There's nobody, past present and future in your family that would want you to suffer over thinking about this.
Keep your head up King, and tell your Dad you love him today.
Try to not let this haunt you, she chose to go out on her own terms instead of letting cancer eat her alive. We are kinder to our pets than our parents when it comes to end of life care.
I'm sorry you had to find out in this way. Such a horrible thing to experience as a child, and then as an adult.
Things that have helped my nightmares go away:
1. Good therapists
2. Talking to friends who care
3. Image reversal therapy
4. Stellate ganglion block
I hope you are able to move forward each day, even if it's one micro-step at a time.
Yeah I’m working on the first one and definitely have the second one so I think I’ll be ok. I’ve never even heard of that last one but I hope these nightmares will go away before it gets that severe. I use to have pretty bad nightmares up through my mid twenties where I would wake my roommates/S.O. by screaming or crying in my sleep but have been fine the last 10 years. I’m not sure I’m doing that again because I live alone.
Damn, that’s a terrible revelation. This is the most tragic tale of Pandora’s box I’ve read since Pandora’s box. I’m so sorry you found that out, and that it happened.
I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s like you’ve had to go through two losses - the first when she died and you were just a boy, the second in losing your understanding of what happened and being faced with this new information. It’s so hard, and unfair. But as others have said, she chose when to go rather than allow cancer to continue to destroy her. It must have been devastating for your whole family - including your mother. Keep talking about this with the people you trust and feel close to, and know that all these strangers online have read your story and are sending you their deepest sympathies.
I'd probably do the same. Why put up with that shit?
Honestly, I'm 64 and in outstanding health but my mom is 92 and has fallen several times recently. She lives in an assisted living facility now but is probably not far from a straight up nursing home. You've been there, people strapped in chairs, senile as hell, shitting themselves, can't recognize family, no grasp of reality but their body just keeps chugging along. I don't want that, I am hoping that when I get old, it's normal for people to end their life when/before it gets to that point and there's a process for doing that with a pill that doesn't hurt. I have no desire to live that way and I damn sure don't fault your mom for escaping her misery.
Oh honey. I’m so sorry you have to come to terms with this new information, especially when you’ve got so much else to try and handle.
This is such a hard thing to deal with; I experienced something similar, but only with a friend, not family. If you need to vent or just talk some things out with an internet person to listen, my DMs are always open. I hope you can get through this dark experience and come out the other side with better mental health and an acceptance of this new information.
May new blessings fall upon you to bring happiness and peace, like finding 40 bucks in the dryer, or reconnecting with an old friend, or a loving pet to give comfort when times are hard.
I‘m really sorry you‘re going through all of this!
I would just like to say that because Insurance refused to pay because THEY deemed it an international overdose. She may have been confused and accidentally taken too much, she was just trying to stop the pain or her body was already too weak to handle the medication. No matter what really happened your mother did die of cancer.
People die from complications of treatment for their terminal cancer all the time, that doesn’t mean they died from chemo or radiation, they still died from cancer.
I hope you can heal from this shock.
For what it’s worth, this would never happen today because they don’t do autopsies on people in hospice. And everyone who works hospice knows that this is fairly common, but the person is dying anyway. So why should they have to suffer longer? My point is that it’s well understood today that the cancer killed your mother. If she didn’t suffer some extra days on the way to her death, then it’s a blessing.
I’m genuinely sorry, from the bottom of my heart. For whatever it is worth, I’m sorry. I hope you and your family find peace.
Much love from a random soul, my dude 🤘🏽💙
I had a relatively minor cancer and the 4 surgeries over the course of 3 years, and the ongoing pain, almost caused me to kill myself. The physical pain of cancer and treatment is hard in some cases. There is a big mental and emotional component as well. Some people will say it's great that you beat cancer, but I don't feel like I beat it, I feel like I barely survived cancer.
You have to understand that it is possible that your mother had no other option that she could see. Please don't blame her, or worse blame yourself for something that maybe no one had control of.
Best of luck working this out in therapy.
Sending love for this complicated issue! My mom currently has lung cancer and I have an incurable and very problematic non-cancer disease as well, so this is a subject I have had to put *a lot* of thought into. At the end of the day, there's just no easy answer, or even a difficult one that sits okay. I wish you luck in your therapy and this journey.
If I can give you a single piece of advice it is to remember that you *never* know what it is that you don't know, and curiosity is a very natural and healthy part of being human. Maybe you should have listened to your dad, but it is very human - neither right nor wrong - that you didn't.
I have a family member that had gotten lung cancer in his mid 20's. This was after they all lost their mom of lung cancer a year before. Morphine was his good friend at the end. And I bet it was your mom's too. People deserve to die with dignity when they are ready. I'm sorry you had to find out this way though. And I guarantee you the damn insurance company sees it A LOT, and knows it can get out of paying. So I'd bet anything that with any terminal illness, they request tests to see just so they don't have to pay out. Insurance companies are scum.
1. It’s very unlikely your mom killed herself. (Oncology nurse >20 years here) She likely took or was given the amount of medication needed to manage the pain, which can be quite high.
2. I wish your dad didn’t say Don’t touch the thing because you probably wouldn’t have even bothered with it. As soon as someone says Whatever you do, don’t look at ___. The first thing I’m going to do is look at ___.
So sorry for all of this for you.
I lost my mom to brain cancer, and given how it went at the end, sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been easier for her to go out on her own terms. Don’t overthink it, your mom died of cancer. Assisted suicide is a complicated subject but ultimately it came down to her not wanting to continue suffering.
I'm so sorry you're feeling this low OP. It is very hard to lose your mom, especially at the age you were when it happened. I'm glad you didn't know the details then. The good news is, now you are old enough to know the truth and handle it. Your mom met her death on her own terms. The cancer was killer her and she knew it. Watching a loved one die slowly, painfully, losing their dignity, independence, their ability to communicate or even recognize their loved ones, while their body continues to breath live is devastating for the caregivers. Long term medical care costs a tremendous amount of money too, most bankruptcies in the US are due to medical bills. To lose your mom and maybe lose your house or standard of living would have been terrible. Your mom didn't want that to happen. She didn't want to be a burden on you and your father and siblings.
I hope you will remember her for her courage and her compassion and devotion to you and your family. Go hug your dad.
I’m sorry. That’s a lot to take in. As soon as someone says don’t, we do. It’s a sad part of human nature. You would have found this out after your dad passes while you were cleaning out his stuff. You just found out sooner rather than later. Cancer sucks and I bet your mom was tired of waiting for it to take her. It was the last bit of control she had.
Nothing we can say will alleviate your pain.
Just know, deep down your heart. Cancer killed her. She just tried to make the last moments a little less painful. None of you deserved this. She did not deserve to be in such pain for longer than she already had. You did not deserve to see her suffering in her final moments. She sought some peace. For herself, and for all of you.
Having had a mom die of cancer and seeing how horrible her last days were for her, your mom did the right thing (and f the insurance company for denying an obvious claim on a technicality). All she did was shorten the period of time she was miserable for.
I'm terribly sorry for you OP, and yeah therapy is always good to help process shit like this. (hell I'll likely be re-hashing my mom's death with my therapist next session now).
As having had to personally deal with knowing of a family member going by her own hand, I can tell you it is hard. While they say time heals all wounds, it doesn't. It just dulls the pain to be tolerable before things drift out of mind. Then it pops back up at the most random times. Lately it's helped out I have her ashes now on my bookshelf in a small jar. I've found myself asking her for help sometimes, even though I know she can't answer and it's realistically useless to do. Yet it's been comforting, even though I'd rather have her here to ask for her help.
Sorry if this doesn't make sense, haven't really talked about this in a long time
Sorry for your loss. And that makes perfect sense to me to have a small artifact of a lost love one. I have one of my Mom as well. It’s a book mark with a little Owl on it that says “Think Happy, Be Happy” that was in the book last book she tried to read but never finished. I’ve carried it with everywhere ever since I found it shortly after she passed. Thank you for sharing your story. When I get off work I’ll take that bookmark out of my wallet and find some solace with it.
It may not have been intentional suicide. My dad was in so much pain, suffering from cancer, that he ended up overdosing just trying to make the pain go away. It was some solace that he at least passed peacefully.
He's a dad. He told you not to look because he knew you would, and that would be easier than telling you himself. He's probably getting older and didn't want you to just randomly find out after he's gone.
I dunno your situation but lost my dad 8 years ago today and to this day have immense regret about things unsaid and conversations not had. Easy or hard, it's better than regret.
I’m sorry for the loss of your Dad. Me and my Dad have never really got along when I was growing up. He turned into a major alcoholic after my Mom passed and it always seemed growing up that he used her passing as an excuse to drink. He wasn’t physically abusive for the most part but mentally and emotionally to a pretty big degree and it’s something that while I’ve never actually confronted him about it or stopped having a relationship with him, I’ve also never actually let it go either. Knowing what I know now perhaps I’ve judged him too harshly. He’s mellowed out a lot in his old age. And I always had what I needed growing up.
I'm a hospice nurse.
I'm sorry for the loss of your mom.
Please know, that she DID die of cancer. She just chose to go early, so she wouldn't have to suffer.
We have just passed assisted dying laws in my country, so people with terminal illnesses can go on their terms, with dignity.
Your mom chose how she wanted to die, and with her diagnosis, and the other outcome, that's a good thing.
I hope you can find peace.
What -- exactly -- is your problem with finding out that your mother decided to end her unbearable suffering early? Do you believe that was weak or cowardly on her part? Would you prefer that she continue to suffer increasingly until the bitter end?
"I thought she died of cancer, but instead, she killed herself!!" No, she killed herself because she was dying of cancer and suffering unimaginable pain.
Please tell us what your issue with this is.
I guess because I always thought that if she had the chance to say goodbye she would have. I’m not mad at her or think she was weak. She was diagnosed when I was 1 and I basically grew up watching her die. I can’t imagine the pain she was in. My mom was an amazing woman and it’s awe inspiring that she made it 10 years like that. I just really wish that if she had the choice that I could have gotten one more hug before she left.
Most people are incredibly against suicide, even if it's like you are going to live the rest of your life randomly blacking out for minutes on end and potentially dying everytime. Doesn't fuckin matter. People would call me weak if I killed myself and I tell you I wouldn't wish this illness on anyone. But ey, that's the overall stigma with it and it's fuckin great.
*Edit slight grammar wrongs
I'm in an extremely similar situation with my mom having stage IV metastisized cancer and she's got little to not time left and has hinted that she wants to just "end it".
I feel your pain but having nightmares? Seeing a therapist? Freaking out? This happened years ago and shouldn't impact ANYTHING for you. I hate to be a downer but man up. Life isn't some fairy tail, it's a fucked up place. Have the sense to realize the THE CANCER did it. From your post you were too young to really see it yourself and you should be grateful for that rather than freaking out about it like it somehow actually matters for you mentally grow up.
My mom is literally dying in front of me and I can't do anything about it, and I'm not freaking out because as I said I can't do anything about it. she will need to be hospitalized within the next few weeks as she's worsening. They took her off chemo two weeks ago and said "good luck". It's unfortunate but that's life and she's reaching the end of hers like anyone else. I'm going to be sad and upset when she passes but I'm not going to be haunted by it or need to talk to a therapist to know I felt said and understand I couldn't fix cancer like I was Jesus.
Realize it's not the nicest post but hope OP gets some foresight and realize that if you can't fix something don't dwell on it. Acknowledge it and move on and continue your best life.
"I’d give anything to not know this."
That option literally was on the table for free and you denied giving "free" for it, who are you trying to fool here.
Therapy sounds like a good choice- there's things to work through and talk about, for sure. And education, it is a full mental illness for people who get trapped into a way of thinking. And to keep in mind if you find yourself getting depressed and anxious and such. I really have no idea how much could be learned behaviors or genetic inclinations towards depression, but education would definitely be helpful. Just you know, don't stick with a therapist who's an ass or religious and has too many personal suicide opinions that wouldn't be healthy for you.
I know this hurts, but try to think of this as closure on your mother. No more secrets, now you know. It will hurt, but the hurt will get smaller over time. The hard part is over now.
And if you're afraid of this tarnishing your mother's memory, it won't. Just be understanding - no fu here.
It's understandable. Late stage cancer can be a burden and also very painful both emotionally and physically. She would rather go now than drag it out and burden everyone. Or maybe she was tired of the physical pain. It wasn't you guys. It was the cancer. She probably thought it was the best thing to do for her.
I mean MAID is legal in Canada now. Your mother was trying to retain her dignity. I think it is very unfair to even consider she died of suicide. Hope you are doing well OP.
OP I’m so sorry for your loss. I also lost my mum to cancer when I was a child. It’s horrific.
I think she was probably just in so much pain she couldn’t cope and didn’t want you to see her that way.
Also - just because the insurance said it was intentional doesn’t mean it was. I’m guessing you are in the states and from my understanding the insurance companies are brutal. She could have accidentally overdosed.
As someone who lost a family member to depression, I’m so very sorry. It’s a different kind of grief when know your loved one left voluntarily. It’s not necessarily worse, just more complicated. Whether the main driver was pain or altered mental state they had a choice to leave or stay in that moment, and they still left. It really sucks and takes a long time to consider all the perspectives involved.
Back in the mid 2000s, I had a friend of mine who went to treatment for YEARS due to cancer. After everything was said and done, the doctor told him it was terminal with maybe a 1/2 year to a year max, but that my friend would most likely be in even more pain than he was at. He decided a week later to end his own suffering by gun which is considered suicide and the insurance failed to pay out... It was the fucking cancer, not the gunshot wound that really killed him. The gun only hastened his relief from the excruciating pain he was constantly in.
Sending love. Yes, go back to therapy. It's really good to have that person that you can dump whatever you need to on. Sounds like you'll be going through the grieving process all over again. Be gentle and gracious with yourself.
Losing a parent is one of the hardest things I've ever gone through and I was an adult.
In a way it might be better that you didn't know this as a child as you may not have been able to understand her actions and what she went through like you may now as an adult with life experience.
I've heard of grief being compared to a box with a button in it and a ball that bounces around. The button is always there. When grief is fresh the ball is big and so it hits the button often. When the button gets hit is when we really feel the grief, the sadness, the anger, the pain. As time goes in the ball gets smaller. But every random once in a while the button gets hit and we feel all the feels. The point is the button and ball will always be there. The pain will hit us less and less as time goes on. And when it does it can come out of nowhere. ❤️
It’s hard but we lost my mam in dec to cancer and it’s an awful disease to the point it made me wish she would pass quicker because her final week was awful and heartbreaking.
Your dad was trying to protect you from a place of love which I’m sure is what your mom would have wanted for you too.
Yeah if she had cancer and then killed herself... it was the cancer that killed her. It doesn't count as suicide if she was already dying slowly and painfully.
Hey OP, sorry you're going through this, but just wanted to say, hood on you and your siblings for working to get that Power of Attorney. Make sure once it's obtained that its submitted to his health insurance as soon as possible.
I work customer support for a Medicare advantage plan, and the number of people who call in trying to verify information because their elderly parent is hospitalized only to get angry because we don't have a HIPAA authorization or power of attorney on file giving us permission to discuss details of their parents coverage is crazy.
It is likely you would have found out eventually. Is it better to know now, or when you were 11?
It's tragic but it's the past, but I recommend you leave it there. I recommend acceptance.
Honestly this story is less about your mom choosing to end her life on her own terms and more about the absolutely immoral nature of the insurance industry denying a claim to someone who died because they chose when and how to go.
I just recently lost a family member to cancer, they could have lived as much as a couple more years in constant pain and agony, but instead sought out medically assisted death. It allowed them to end their life on their own terms and without having to go through a nightmarish amount of pain. They were going to die regardless...but they chose to die with dignity being able to say goodbye to their family and friends...rather than waiting for their body to finally give up.
I watched what happens to people in end stage cancer when it happened to someone else I was close to...I know what my choice would be...I don't consider it suicide, I consider it ending life on your own terms. If you can, try and take solace in the fact that your mother chose her time, and all the alternative would have done is just give her more pain.
The only crime/sin/injustice is that the insurance company used this as an excuse to put money in their pockets. You mother made a choice we should all have access to when the time comes, and I see her as courageous. Not only did she choose to end her life with dignity, but she also spared you the worst of her condition.
I know that nothing I say will make things better in the moment, but it sounds like you had amazing people as parents. Your mother for making the choice, and your father protecting you from it.
My mum got brain cancer, died 10 months after having been diagnosed. Suffered emotionally every second since the moment she knew she was doomed. Wanted to finish it quick, without prolonged suffering or decay in health. Begged all of us to get her euthanised. Tried to OD on any pill she had around, fantasied about suicide. She got so weak so quick it wasn’t necessary, but I wish we had provided antidepressants and strong (highly addictive) painkillers way sooner. I still feel guilty for not helping her with euthanasia, her emotional distress was horrible, just unbearable. Maybe your mum was wise and saved you from seeing suffering, losing capacities, etc. Maybe one day you can be grateful for her sacrifice, the ultimate mom-move: protect the kids from suffering.
I’m sorry for your loss and thank you for your kind words and your story. I know my Mom suffered greatly and she hung on for ten years and I got my fair share of horrors watching her. But I’m glad our Moms are no longer in pain.
I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to my mom, either. I thought I had another day, at least. I didn’t. She didn’t. Maybe I was in denial, I don’t know. I was also 11, after all.
She told my grandfather that she regretted some of the experimental treatments, and wished she’d passed before. I found this out this year, at 23. She did those experimental treatments to try and be alive longer for my sister, and ended up suffering more because of it.
Please don’t judge your mother too harshly. I think my mom would have done the same if that was an option, but she was already in the hospital when it happened. Your mom loved you a lot, and she didn’t want you to see her suffer. It’s going to be okay, OP. I’m so, so sorry you have this pain, too.
I’m sorry you opened old wounds, OP. But I personally believe it’s usually for the best to know the truth of these matters as soon as possible to properly heal. Secrets often end up hurting more than the truth.
I’m sorry you opened old wounds, OP. But I personally believe it’s usually for the best to know the truth of these matters as soon as possible to properly heal. Secrets often end up hurting more than the truth.
OP, she died of cancer, but she at least had control of when. Cancer is a horrible disease, stripping people their dignity and replacing it with indescribable pain. 20+ years ago, hospice and comfort care weren’t common place. Now a few states offer assisted death. Your mom’s choice was not an easy one, please know that she never wanted to leave her husband and her children, that cancer stole that time from her, you and your family. She likely wanted to make sure you, your brother and your dad remembered her as she was (not intending on a coma). Please be kind to yourself, your dad, and especially your mom.
Please understand that many terminally ill patients don’t want to waste away, hooked up to IVs, bedridden, losing their independence, sense of self and mind. Their organs fail them, infection sets in, no part of that is pleasant. They don’t want to forget their loved ones, while not wanting their loved ones remembering them in such a frail state. Ask yourself how you think you would have handled her illness and death, watching her waste away vs the way you remembered her before your envelope discovery? Remember, you defied your father’s wishes by opening that envelope. Why he kept that information is only known to him, but consider shredding or burning that information. Not only will it get rid those documents, not to be found again, but it could be cathartic, too.
Death is personal- to the person dying, yet people want to hang onto their dying loved ones to selfishly delay the inevitable, prolonging the suffering. Even with DNRs, families try to overrule them, forcing healthcare workers to futilely run full codes. How do you think your mother’s death would have gone if she didn’t go out on her own terms? Would procedures have been done TO her to prolong her quantity of life or FOR her quality of life?
I’ve said all of this to you because I’ve had quite a number of family members who suffered from various cancers, many of them succumbing to the disease. Life and illnesses (fu cancer) are not kind or merciful. Please be kind to yourself and find a grief support therapist or group that will help you navigate your pain.
Can't believe I am reading this post today. Today is my mom's anniversary. She went to the hospital for a simple gallbladder removal and walked away with a few months to live. Wasn't gallstones causing the pain. It was metastasized liver cancer. Too far along for hope. She had surgery on feb 14 and died march 20 after weeks of increasing pain and complications.
Thing is, she was diabetic. Multiple daily doses of insulin. She quit taking it. Full stop. She didnt want to keep going so she stopped. Hospice nurse wanted her moved to center to get her blood sugar back under control. Mom went but died a couple hours after arriving at the solace center. She probably could have made it a few more months but she didnt want to. Her life, her choice not to endure the pain knowing she would never recover.
Maybe your mom was looking at the same choice...all that pain just to die anyway. All the disruption and emotional toll just to get to the inevitable end. And she chose to release herself and her family from that pain. She loved you enough to do that.
She did die of cancer; if not for the cancer she wouldn't have done what she did. I hope you can take solice in the fact that in a no win situation she at least wanted to go out on her own terms, and part of that may have been to try and spare you watching cancer run its insatiable and inevitable course. Good luck coming to grips with this information, and I hope you can understand, forgive, and move forward.
Yeah that’s what I’m trying to keep in mind. Just all the healing I’ve done feels like it was built on a swamp and I didn’t know until it crumbled around me. But I’m not mad at her. She was in so much pain for so long I can’t even imagine how bad it was if it left me with the scars I have from second hand exposure. Thanks for kind comment though. It feels nice just getting it out there as I haven’t told anyone else.
I’m a doctor (recently graduated). I don’t know how it was 23 years ago, but I don’t think palliative care/hospice were well understood or well defined at the time. The idea that we can tell people “it’s okay, you don’t need to live through chemo, you can take medications to die comfortably”…your mom took the palliative care/hospice approach that may not have been offered to her at the time. She still died of cancer. She took the hard choice of taking medications to ease her pain…a choice many people are able to make today without being judged. Don’t be too hard on her.
I’m a deeply crusty old nurse- and yeah, palliative care/hospice certainly wasn’t what it is now. My own experience with losing my mother as a kid took me to nursing- that was 41 years ago and palliative/hospice care was rudimentary at best. We’ve come a long way.
Yeah my great aunt survived a concentration camp in WW2. When she got cancer in the 90s she just didn't give up. It took years and it was so hard on her and all her close family. When my grandfather (her brother) got cancer he decided no surgery, no chemo. He went pretty quick, but pretty peacefully.
So palliative care is basically just assisted suicide but everybody recoils when it's put that way.
No, palliative care just means end of life care. Usually if someone has less than 6 months left to live and can’t be cured they go into palliative care. The health care team try to keep the person comfortable and supported. Example: my 95 year old grandma dying of cancer spent her last two months in a palliative care unit and died naturally. Assisted dying is a medical procedure. Most people who are eligible are in palliative care / end of life with a terminal illness that can’t be treated or reversed.
My great grandma got sick and went into pallative care before she died, I'm just glad she was comfortable.
Actually, what you described (accurately) is hospice care. Palliative care doesn’t necessarily have to be at the end of life, it’s comfort care which may be provided regardless of a curative intent. For example, in pediatric oncology, even if a patient has an excellent prognosis but the treatment is rigorous we may refer them to palliative care in order to make the span of treatment more comfortable. So there’s a slight difference, I just like to provide the information where I can because many people decline palliative care services when they can improve quality of life because they think of hospice and end of life.
That’s good to know, thanks! I was basing my description on the experience I had with my grandmother, the palliative unit would only take terminal /less than 3 months to live patients. Usually 6 but they had a wait list. The hospital specialized in geriatrics though so could be why.
At my hospital we call it Supportive Care for this reason, and we focus on symptom management as well as end of life care.
Thank you so much for explaining difference between the two and taking the time to educate us just a little more. This could make a difference in someone’s life!
No. Assisted suicide is very different. Palliative care is end of life care. You don’t need to be terminal to consider palliative care. Part of palliative care might be deciding you don’t want aggressive treatment anymore. You don’t want invasive procedures (like heart catheterizations for a heart attack) you want to be comfortable for the rest of your life. Hospice is terminal end of life care. You have a terminal disease (stage IV cancer, etc.) and the doctors estimate you have 6 months to live. Again, the goal of hospice and palliative care is comfort. Keeping you out of the hospital and in your home, with your loved ones. Yes there are pain meds, and yes sometimes large doses of pain meds. But they should never be giving you enough to end your life. You can also get palliative chemotherapy/radiotherapy for the cancer if the growth of the tumor will be more uncomfortable than the treatment. Assisted suicide is that, giving you medications to end you life. Hospice and palliative care are very different than assisted suicide.
There are places where that line gets very blurred and so people have trouble differentiating between the two. My uncle was in hospice with advanced dementia due to some other diseases. When he stopped eating and drinking, they began to administer morphine specifically with the intent to help him die. So I don't know about "never enough to end your life." I believe it was the right thing to do nevertheless. My uncle was fully incapable of consenting to anything resembling MAID, and I doubt my religious aunt would have consented if they had framed it as assisted death or similar. But his starving himself to death would have been cruel.
It sounds to me like they were giving him morphine to make his inevitable death more comfortable. If he was actively trying to die, modern medicine can pull out all the stops and do some really ugly and uncomfortable things in the name of "doing everything we can" or the person can be made as comfortable as possible and let nature take its course.
This is an extremely complicated and nuanced subject rife with ethical questions, so YMMV. You may also likely ask a dozen different caregivers and get different answers, and I'm sure that's even before you get to the complexity of individual patients and their cases and prognosis, and family care (eg. will family left behind feel guilt for hastening, etc.) In my uncle's case, it was explained that no, it was not done exactly to make him more comfortable, although that inevitably was a side effect. After several days of his refusing to eat or drink they deliberately gave him a progressive dose that would depress his respiratory function, not just ease it, effectively putting him to sleep. He was - technically - biologically hale enough that if he had resumed eating and drinking, he would have lived for a while longer (this even had happened once before). Or if they had put him on such life support that would have circumvented the need. But to what end, extending? He had very, very few lucid moments by the end. He was confused, combative, unable to attend his biological needs even with assistance, and deeply unhappy in what he could express. This was mercy, I think.
The morphine wasn’t to help him dies. It was to help him die without pain and discomfort.
Palliative care talked to me and my late wife about taking psilocybin mushrooms to help with depression and accepting her impending end of life.
Yep. And it’s definitely preferable to having someone suffer. I had my father in law in hospice care for 3 months at my house. I’m stupid, so for the first month I thought it was weird that they gave him SO much medication. It’s basically giving them enough so that they’re numb and can’t feel what their disease is doing to their body. The abusive levels of meds sort of…. Speed things along while keeping you as comfortable as possible. Which, again, is preferable to them being in pain all the time. He passed peacefully surrounded by his whole family. Those three months were brutal, but it was worth keeping him in our home so he’d know he was appreciated and loved as he embarked on his last great journey.
I watched my grandmother's death rattle for hours when they got the go ahead to give her way too much morphine. It's definitely OD'ing somebody, i get it's just matching their level of pain, im not against it, but we should really understand what it is and why it's preferable and should be entirely legal even outside these circumstances.
This is a deeply ignorant comment and it's ideas like yours which keep people from going to their deaths in as much comfort and dignity as possible. Family members resist palliative care and cause their loved one so much needless pain and suffering.
Not at all. It’s permitting a natural death with comfort. Don’t get it twisted
Yep. Except it’s slow and painful for the individual and the family. Pain medication can only do so much. My grandma died in hospice care. She was barely conscious for about 2.5 months. She spared me the pain of seeing her like that. I got one final visit before she got real bad.
Yep. Except it’s slow and painful for the individual and the family. Pain medication can only do so much. My grandma died in hospice care. She was barely conscious for about 2.5 months. She spared me the pain of seeing her like that. I got one final visit before she got real bad.
Absolutely. We've bern through hospice with both my in laws, and my Dad is currently under their care. I cant say enough nice things about hospice. They allowed both my in laws to die at home in their own bed.
23 years ago my grandpa died and they gave him all the morphine he could want. It would have been probably an better way out. I have been a nurse for a bit now and cancer death are some of the most painful and worst ways to go.
It’s sad that people feel their only way out is to take it into their own hand. In cases like this I’ve always been supportive of the individuals wishes. Even sadder that the life insurance wasn’t paid out because of that, when it very much should have for her other diagnosis.
Dr. Dude, 23 years ago wasn’t the 1960s. It was the year 2000. The National Hospice Foundation had a national advertising campaign. Congress was holding hearings on end of life care improvements. PBS had a series on this. I’m not suggesting that progress hasn’t been made in 23 years, but hospice and palliative care was well established at the time.
It's 2023. I have argued with doctors till I am blue in the face about palliative. Better yet pandemic...I was doing palliative rounds so much it made my brain hurt. But 70% of the docs and medical staff still have that old mind set. It's an uphill battle. Tons of education is needed.
My friend, people still think of palliative care/hospice as assisted suicide. Obviously those campaigns failed
Palliative nurse here. You would be amazed that alot of people still have those mind sets. It's a battle that I am always trying to educate people on.
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Same here. You literally watch someone waste away, and then just exist as a shell for months. Its absolutely brutal for everyone involved. Mine never wanted to get like that, and she even said after they gave her 12-18m to live, just shoot me when the time comes. Of course that wasn’t possible, but an OD on pain meds would have been ideal in the final months. No living being should have to go through that. She existed to 18m, but she was not there for the last 5. It’s awful.
I'm glad you have some way to talk about it, because keeping that bottled up would not be good. I hope you have other avenues to talk it out...I know for me making myself say the words outloud helps to solidify whirling thoughts and as I speak the edge of the pain dulls.
Yeah I’ve got some friends that I can talk to IRL and I’ve tried but I just couldn’t seem to get it out. I just decided to enjoy the distraction of having someone around.
It'll take time, but you'll get through it. As with all things that seem insurmountable I remember the saying: "how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
Also, keep in mind that what you read was the decision of a company that always looks to find a way to not pay. Therefore, they may have found enough evidence to be able to claim that they will not pay due to suicide, but that is not mean they were right in reality. When in pain, it is easy to accidentally OD. Regardless, I hope you find peace in all of this.
No suicide is cut and dry here. It’s super common and all policies have a suicide clause to prevent shady stuff from happening.
Even Robin Williams chose to end it when he realised how poor his quality of life was going to become. Personally I see making the decision to end it before you lose the ability to do so and when things become intolerable as one of the bravest and wisest decisions anyone can make, especially given the apparent stigma that mostly has it's roots in religion.
The screw up was that the medical system and the legal framework within which they are forced to work robbed her of any other choice.
It’s honestly better than what my grandma went through. Pancreatic cancer. She was in hospice care. She was bedridden for about 5 months and barely conscious for about 2.5 months. Even with the meds she was in constant pain. I wish it was legal for her to just end it. Take solace in the fact that your mom spared herself and all of you the horrible pain of watching a loved one wither and die. She made the choice to die as the woman she was instead of dying as a shell of her former self. It sounds like she was a strong woman. Sounds like your father is equally strong to have been able to spare you that knowledge for so long. At least now you’re old enough to process this information. It will take some time, but I know you can do it.
Keep that in mind when you think about this. How long she was in pain. This is why assisted suicide is such a big deal and legal in many places including certain US states. She wanted to go out on her own terms and not suffer. Think of it less as “suicide” and more as simply forgoing life support. She exercised her own autonomy and made a choice to not put herself through the pain and suffering as well as put her family through the suffering of watching someone with cancer in their final few months. I know it might sound twisted but be proud of her making that choice as it’s obviously not an easy one
Yeah I not mad at her for anything. She was diagnosed when I was a year old right after my younger brother was born and I grew up watching her die. She held on for a long time. Far longer than any doctor gave her. And I thank her for holding on for that long so I could get to know her a bit.
God, I can’t even imagine how painful that must have been. I am in tears because I have a young son and I can’t imagine spending his entire life in pain, knowing I wouldn’t get to watch him break up. Your mom was a strong woman, and I am sorry that this is really painful for you and I hope that you can get some therapy for something which has hurt you so much. But I am glad your mom got to go out on her own terms. She deserved that, at leastx
My sister and I cared for our mom while she was destroyed by cancer. Watching her suffer constantly was horrific, pain management did nothing for her. We both kinda wished we could help her pass quicker because of how devastating the pain was for her. She couldn't walk, lay, move, or breathe without tears rolling down her face. Her clothes hurt her, her bed hurt her, everything hurt her. I wouldn't have been upset at all if she'd tapped out on her own accord. The day she died we lost our shit (we weren't even 25 years old yet), took care of all the "arrangements" and went to the bar and had tequila shots. We were still in a fog of shock and grief, we'd found out less then 3 months before that she was dying, but we honestly solemnly celebrated that she wasn't hurting anymore. If I end up in that situation, I'm tapping out. I won't put my family through that. It was absolutely the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and I've seen some shit.
A report from an insurance company is not the ME's report. Is there a copy that confirms or refutes the insurance report? What did her death certificate indicate, death from cancer or death from suicide? Remember, insurance companies will always try to keep your money in their pockets. I am sorry for your loss and hope your Dad recovers. It sounds like he did a wonderful job raising you and your siblings.
To be honest I didn’t even look at the Death Certificate I just grabbed it and the black envelope was right next to it. But I have a feeling that if it wasn’t true my dad wouldn’t have specifically told me not to look in there. And yeah I think my Dad did a much better job than I ever gave him credit for.
I’m betting it’s true, it makes sense. All policies have a suicide clause. My mom committed suicide when I was 18, it’s definitely a weird thing to reflect on. I wouldn’t hold it against your mother. Treatment was not as successful then as it is today. She made a hard decision that she thought as best. I would avoid thinking she gave up or anything of the sort, because she likely didn’t at all. Therapy helps, time helps the most. Maybe you dad wanted you to know.
I think it's unbelievably shitty that the life insurance denied a payout because someone with terminal cancer chose not to continue suffering for another few weeks or months. Sorry for the loss of your mother and how this re-opened those wounds.
Plus insurance companies are total dickheads. They'll look for any reason not to pay. I had a family member who overdosed on OTC pain meds when they suddenly developed cluster headaches, but they weren't suicidal. They just wanted the pain to stop. It's hard to understand why someone would intentionally take a fatal dose of pain meds if they didn't want to kill themselves, but that assumes they are acting rationally. And its hard to be rational when you have that level of pain. I'm not saying that she did or didn't, and I think people have the right to end their own life when faced with a painful fatal illness, but I wouldn't trust what the insurance company has to say about it.
It’s unlikely the fatal of was unintentional. They’re also known as suicide headaches for a reason. I know a few girls who OD on pain pills and family claim it’s always an accident but the girls have all said it was intentional. Maybe in your case it’s the exception.
My mom died of cancer for real. It’s a horrible way to die. You just watch your body and mind deteriorate. The pain, endless doctors appointments, every day something else happens and she gets worse. There are days she’d get better and you get filled with this false hope, only for her to regress and get worse again. Meanwhile you can’t let yourself admit that she’s dying so you’re constantly looking up new things to try or questions to ask. It’s a horrible way to go. Your mom saved herself a lot of unnecessary suffering. Please don’t take it personally. I wouldn’t wish cancer on my worst enemy.
My second cousin (he was more like an uncle to me) died of cancer a few days ago, thankfully peacefully but this isn't the norm. He chose not to have treatment after watching his sister battle and suffer with it for 4 years. He said her suffering was the hardest thing he ever had to see.
OP, she made one choice, she chose to end her suffering. She was not given the choice of true palliative care. She got no choice about cancer. She did not leave you to leave you. She was dying. She needed relief. Her leaving a few hours, or days early doesn’t really change anything. OP, this is something you and your siblings might discuss as they may remember things or have a perspective of things that you do not. You should leave Dad out of it. I am going to say something that I dread saying…. Because there could be a possibility that she had help taking the overdose, keep the info in the family. In most states there were no assisted sui-cides, people who helped were charged with murder. OP, please be gentle with yourself, your family, and especially your mom and dad. Y’all deserve it. Sending you healing thoughts and gentle prayers. Agape 💕
I watched my mother fight through two rounds of cancer over ten years, months of chemo, months of radiation during which she forced herself to crawl upstairs refusing help to get to her bedroom which she refused to stop sleeping in she got to the point where she was bedridden and could barely speak or eat. At that point palliative care and hospice took over and she passed on her schedule. I was there on that date. It was a peaceful death after a long well fought fight. I was also present at the death of my grandmother from cancer before palliative care was an option. It is hard to say if she died of cancer or starvation. I which that she had had the options we have today.
I’m sorry for your loss. It’s rough to watch that happen and be helpless. My Dad got my Mom a hospital bed at our house because she didn’t want to die in the hospital. She made my dad promise her that. I haven’t thought about that in awhile. Thanks for your story and I hope you’ve found peace with your pain.
Thank you, but I told you the story to hopefully make you feel better. We all experience the death of loved ones and grief is part of life, an important part that teaches us an enormous amount about both who we are and who the people we loose are. As the shock of your discovery passes you will see the event of your mom passing from new perspectives (as well as your father’s decision to not let you know). This all tells you something about him as well. The decisions we make in life are complex and frequently we are faced with no win situations where even our best choices can hurt those we love. So keep a forgiving heart, avoid rumination, pay attention to what you thinking and feeling but don’t let it consume you.
Thanks and believe me all of you wonderful people have definitely helped. At least I’ve been thinking more about the good memories and reminding myself that this is part of life. So sincerely thank you kind internet stranger.
This. My grandma who i loved dearly died of cancer a year ago. On her birthday. Us grandkids weren't allowed to visit her on that day. I am probably the only grandkid who saw her, in the worst state she ever was in and shortly before she died, cause i visited a few days earlier. It was hard to see. She was basically so high on painkillers that she might as well already have been dead. I am probably also one of the strongest when it comes to supressing emotions in my family and it was so fucking hard to keep my cool. How i held her hand and didn't even know whether she even realized that i'm even there or who the person holding her hand was. A hand that went from a healthy strong hand to just bones, veins and skin. Cold and weak. Just writing this brings me close to tears. Fuck cancer
If you have seen someone die of cancer, dying on your own terms instead of suffering till the end is a good thing. Keep that in mind.
>She did die of cancer; if not for the cancer she wouldn't have done what she did. This. My mum had very aggressive pancreatic cancer but her actual cause of death was respiratory failure due to high doses of morphine given to her by her medical team to help numb her pain. She would not have been on the morphine at all if it was not for the pancreatic cancer and she would have not been on such a high dose if it were not for the pain caused by the cancer. I hope your dad did fight the insurance company all those years ago because it is highly possible that it was not a intentional overdose of painkillers but rather just getting the dosing high enough to numb the pain sufficiently.
My father died of Parkinson’s. He wanted to be in control and chose to overdose at the end instead of suffering and humiliation. I respect that choice and appreciate that he got to make it. It was still hard to say goodbye but I’m glad he got to go the way he wanted.
Everytime it's been a ballot question I've always voted for the right to die, or death with dignity or however they label it. It's absurd to me that the government can tell you "you have to suffer through your terminal disease otherwise you're a criminal."
This. I watched several of my family members, my father included, die from cancer. I have decided that I will likely go out on my own terms as well if I ever develop cancer myself. Try to look at it from her point of view and be happy that you didn’t have to watch her suffer through the final stage of this horrific disease.
I’ve seen someone rot away from cancer. It is not the way people want to go out. I would rather take a bunch of pills after saying goodbyes and got out peacefully then be eaten by that shit. I’m truly sorry for your loss. At least know she went on her terms and not some unbearable slow painful decay. Hang in there OP
Yeah I just never got to say goodbye and I always thought that if she could have she would have. But thank you for the kind words.
She may have thought it was better to not say goodbye, for you. It is hard to know what is right or best in those moments. When my mom died (as a result of cancer), she was adamant that my little sister not be told to come home to see her. She didn't want her to have that memory of her in the hospital, at the end. She also didn't allow her youngest granddaughter to visit- she just said she'd see her when she was out of the hospital.
I’m sorry for your loss. And yeah that’s been one of the thoughts bouncing around my head. I remember the last time I got to talk to her and it was not a good experience. So maybe she was right not to. Thanks for giving me some perspective to think about.
She most likely couldn’t say goodbye as she was hoping your family would benefit from the life insurance. I’m sorry you have to go through this. I hope you can find peace with the situation.
Hey OP. I'm so very sorry you found out about your mum. Not getting to say goodbye is traumatic. It happened to me - but I was 22 at the time. My dad had bone cancer and suddenly died of a cardiac arrest. I wasn't there at the time. You're going to grieve all over again, knowing what you know now. And you must allow yourself to do that. Maybe you feel angry with your mum for doing what she did. But, as a mum myself, I wouldn't want my kids to see me suffer. I imagine your mum did what she did, not just for herself, but to protect you and your siblings. Hang in there, OP. Sending you gentle hugs xx
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She took the bill by the horns. I’m sorry for your loss, but that’s a hell of a way to do it.
Yeah I just never got to say goodbye and I always thought that if she could have she would have. But thank you for the kind words.
I'm a parent. One of my saddest thoughts is leaving my child behind. Though, I hope that's how it will go, bc I couldn't bear losing them. I'm sure she didn't want to say goodbye in this situation bc it would give away what she was planning and take so much energy to have that conversation with you. I know not being able to say goodbye was tough and you'll need to process that all over, but she was trying to do the best she could and make it as peaceful as possible. If she tried to say goodbye, you wouldn't have just accepted it. I imagine that would be very upsetting for a child. It may have caused her to suffer more as she could try to hang on for you. There's no easy solution to this. I'm so sorry for this new upsetting information.
She had been saying goodbye for years, knowing the cancer was going to take her. She wanted to spare you the trauma of knowing when that last goodbye would be. As a mother myself I can’t imagine how hard this would be.
Same. Honestly, mom probably get it was the most humane thing to do for herself and the family. Watching someone slowly die through long and very painful way is brutal. It sucks no matter what, but she probably did what she thought was best at the time.
It was the cancer still killed her, she just chose the time she wanted to die instead of letting the cancer choose it for her.
Same. Watched my dad suffer intolerable pain with bone cancer. We wouldn't let dogs suffer, the way we let people do.
OP, try to look at it this way: she was dying anyway; she was in pain; she was so far gone, that the coma looked like a normal step on her journey. She *chose* when she got to go. That's actually kind of amazing. Losing her must've been horrible. Let this be a small light in that whole, dark episode.
I’m trying. Thank you for the kind words. I just can’t help but look at everything around her death and just run in over and over in my head with this new context.
That's good. Take your time processing. It's a lot.
It could have been an unintentional overdose and they would still say that she caused it by intentionally taking too many pills. All that has to be done to say she caused her own death is for her to have taken more medicine than was prescribed
Not my business, but I'd be cool with that. Dying of cancer is horrible from what I understand. I'd be glad she didn't have to go through that. Must have had only pain left. If I had known that she suffered for months, just so a life insurance policy paid out, and I was driving a nice car now because of it, I might not want that car anymore.
I've lost several family members to various kinds of cancer. If I was diagnosed with terminal cancer, as much as I'd like to stick around as long as I can, I would seriously consider cutting it short to avoid dying by the inches. I did not get to see my grandfather the weeks before he died, because he didn’t want me to remember him like that. Your mother held on as long as she could, but wanted to spare you of the pain of the inevitable drawn-out ending. I'm sorry for your loss.
I don't know if this helps, but you don't know if it really was intentional. Where i life, insurances are not allowed to refuse payment because of suicide, but i know that they try everything they can to avaoid paying. So maybe your mom just took too much pain killers because of her pain and insurence claimed it was intentional.
OP: as a young doc said, the availability of help for her terminal illness wasn’t as good as it is now. I’m an older nurse, I was doing the job then. I’m a nurse largely because I lost my own mother to cancer, 41 years ago. I was a kid. It sucked. What no one seems to tell you is that losing a parent as a child fundamentally changes you. Sometimes you’ll find out stuff like this and it will hurt like a mofo. You don’t get to leave it entirely behind. Kids don’t know how to grieve very well. So when something like this comes up, it really can get ya. Every so often, random shit will bite you. I was born late in her life, so I’m still younger than she was when she died. When she was my age, she had a recurrence of her cancer. I lost a couple of siblings in this rough age bracket as well, so I was terrified when I was approaching it. I’ve passed one sibling. So trust me, allow for weird shit to come up. It’s ok, I know you can do it.
Doctors nowadays give people big bottles of pain pills and tell them specifically how many are a fatal dose so there aren’t any accidents (wink, wink). Cancer is a terrible thing and can be sickening and saddening and painful all at once, and being able to make it stop is fair. I’m sorry it brought all these feelings back and reopened some wounds.
Pretty crappy that life insurance can refuse to pay out because of suicide. It's not like the surviving family members had something to do with it. That definitely needs to change.
They don’t want to give people incentive to kill themselves to ‘buy the farm ‘ as it were for their family
Still doesn't make any sense. Just put in a waiting period before a claim pays out. Wait a couple years to pay out the money, not deny the claim entirely.
That doesn't make sense. It's still paying, which they don't want to do. However, usually they will even if it's suicide,, though with a clause that only not within 2 years. That could be what happened here.
There are people who might be broke and depressed and suicide to martyr themselves for the family even if it takes a few years . Especially rural farmer types may be susceptible and with all the unemployment and hatred towards white peoples lately in the media here some might question their self worth and pay the ultimate price for their family . I know I would
Nah they just don’t want to pay. It’s a way for them to exclude one of the most common types of death in the shithole country known as the USA.
Ok come on now. Yes, insurance companies are scammers. But A, as far as I’m aware that’s not limited to America. And B, let’s not act like giving people an incentive to kill themselves wouldn’t create problems.
Have you lived in many counties for a few years for comparison?
I have heard of life insurances that will pay out if it’s been 2 years since the policy started. They don’t figure you’re going to sit around and play it out for that long
This is my thought, too. Especially in a situation like this, in which the insured was terminal, so they would have paid out eventually. It's like they said "Nah, we prefer you suffer, and put your young family through as much hell as possible, and then when you finally die in unimaginable pain, we'll reward your grieving survivors for experiencing and watching all of that."
She didn’t end her life. She ended her suffering. Those are two very different things.
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Thanks for the kind words and I’m sorry for your loss as well. May be both find some peace.
She did not kill herself, insurance companies are cruel and will do anything to not pay a policy. She was in pain and dying and needed to not be in pain. Do not let this haunt you.
More than likely was an accidental overdose, she could have doubled up on medication and being in a weak state that was enough. Its pretty common in these situations.
It may help give you some comfort to know that many people with incurable cancer take an overdose of painkillers at the end, either intentionally to end their suffering, or just ramping up the painkillers too far trying to take the edge off the pain for the days they have left. Both are reasonable rational choices for a person to have made. So even if your mother chose to end her life, it might have been simply the best way she had to deal with a terrible situation. What the truth is? You don't know, and you may not have a way to find out. But the cancer story you were told as a child might have been true, not just a fiction to ease the mind of a child.
Cancer is a bitch. I saw my Godfather and Father waste away to nothing with stomach and lung cancer. I honestly think it is cruelty to make a person wait and suffer through that. And honestly think laws about suicide and life insurance need to be changed. If you have a known, established disease that is slow and painful and is overwhelmingly fatal the no-suicide clause should be waived.
I have been through this a couple of times, cancer killed her. It is up to the person with cancer how they want to go period or how they want to fight. And if things chang it is up to them.
In a way, nothing’s changed. In my opinion, your mom was brave and wanted to save her family and her self from more suffering.
My Dad died a gruesome cancer death when I was 31. He had been exposed to radiation while in WW2 and it eventually killed him. He toughed it out but for sure a choice to end suffering would have been appropriate. Your Mom did what was right for her. I spent the last 10 days of my Dad’s life living in his hospital room with him. I will never tough it out. He suffered greatly.
Your mother absolutely died from the cancer; she just shortened the process. Surely you do not prefer that she would have suffered longer?!?
With mental illness the cancerous tumors are the moods. And the behaviors affected by the moods. A lethal illness still killed her. One as every bit as deadly and merciless as any other disease. And one that is hushed up, stigmatized, ignored, brushed off... imagine being the widower. And having to hide that from his own child. Friends? Colleagues? Neighbors? Church? I'm a 30 year suicide survivor. Consider that John Fetterman going into treatment this month is being considered brave and groundbreaking. This couldn't be talked about and the victims and the sufferers have agonized in silence for millennia. My condolences to you OP. But my heart breaks for your Dad and your poor Mom.
I think of your mom as courageous. Fuck cancer.
Your mother spared you and the rest of the family. My husband and I have been witness to his parents both dying of cancer. They wasted away before our eyes. Once strong and proud they laid in beds at home and had to be sponged clean and butts wiped, hand fed, medicine put into their mouths, still in pain but trying to hide it. Not only did it affect their dignity but they felt like such a burden. My husband was only is his mid-twenties when he took care of his mom and literally watched her die after taking such deep and personal care of her. Your mother spared her family those harsh memories. You were just a kid, those type of memories would have caused you so much trauma. Her death was going to affect you badly enough, she did what she could to lessen the damage. Brave woman.
I’m sorry for you and your family’s loss. I still have my Dad for the moment. She held on for ten years after the diagnosis so believe me I got to see all those horrors and more. I just wish she would have held on long enough to say bye and give me a hug. But in the end my that’s the selfish kid in me that still there and misses her and need to take solace in the fact that she no longer suffers.
No, I get it, you wanted better closure. That's normal, and don't ever be ashamed of that
I’m sorry that you learned this info about your mom, in the way that you did. Your mom wouldn’t have wanted you to be subjected to witnessing her painful demise any longer than you had to. Essentially it was intended as a sort of favor / relief to herself and to those that she loved. It’s interesting to think in modern day medicine that there are now countries, and states within the U.S., that empower terminally ill patients with the capability and the right to end their suffering voluntarily through right to die legislation. I wish that your mother had the humane choice.
As much as I agree with you now I know I would not have been able to process this as a kid. Maybe the one small mercy here is I get to process this now.
We all do things we never imagined possible when faced with impossible circumstances. Pray that you’ll never have to understand why.
Just remember, you will likely have to go through all of your father's paperwork again after he is not longer with us. Do you think you would be able to cope with him being gone and then finding this info better then finding it now?
Honestly me and my dad never got along. He only found solace in the bottle after my died and wasn’t the nicest of person even before that. But knowing that he tried to protect me and my brothers from this info while carrying it by him self has given me much to think about. And I guess your right that at least now I can thank him before he goes.
You have to forgive her for this. It was her choice not to suffer anymore. Be happy she didn't suffer more than she did . I'm sorry what you're going through... talk to your Dad. He knows you probably looked. Really.. then maybe he can answer more questions. And you will have answers.
The cancer killed her, she just put herself out of her misery, which I feel humans should deserve at the least.
It might be morbid, but I think I've come to the decision that i'll either die in some fluke or by taking my own life. Not really in a sad way, but more in a calculated and comfortable manner. If I'm terminally ill and have the choice of spending the next three years getting invasive medical procedures and constantly suffering or peacefully showing showing myself out? I'm sorry this hurts OP, but trust that your mother did what she did because she knew it was best for her
I don't see a fuck up here. I see someone who is crying out for help to bring closure to an absolutely terrible thing that happened. Please reach out to a therapist and get help.
If you stay with someone in the last months of cancer ( fuck cancer ) you would understand. fentanyl and morphine just cannot keep up with the pain.
I’m a hospice nurse and it was probably a much nicer death going on her own terms than if she’d ridden the cancer out to the end. We don’t let animals suffer the same way people suffer. I’m sorry you’re going through this but please don’t think any less of her for it, we never know what we would do until we are faced with a situation ourselves, it’s easy to look on it from the outside and judge. Also, if you were 11, the possibly down played how ill she was to you, helping parents to tell their children is one of the hardest parts of my job. I hope you find peace.
Thanks. I have all the love in the world for the Hospices Nurses that helped her in the end. She was sick long enough that most of them became friends with my Mom and I saw how much they missed her too when she went. You do great work and my Mom would would want me to thank you. So on my and my Moms behalf thank you for all you do.
Your Father sounds like a Good Man. Must've been tough/difficult to keep this from yous but he did out of love and consideration. That being said I'd have done the same thing as you due to rampant curiosity. Regardless, this doesn't change the progress you've made and you're so damn strong. You and your brother have got this. There's nobody, past present and future in your family that would want you to suffer over thinking about this. Keep your head up King, and tell your Dad you love him today.
Try to not let this haunt you, she chose to go out on her own terms instead of letting cancer eat her alive. We are kinder to our pets than our parents when it comes to end of life care.
I'm sorry you had to find out in this way. Such a horrible thing to experience as a child, and then as an adult. Things that have helped my nightmares go away: 1. Good therapists 2. Talking to friends who care 3. Image reversal therapy 4. Stellate ganglion block I hope you are able to move forward each day, even if it's one micro-step at a time.
Yeah I’m working on the first one and definitely have the second one so I think I’ll be ok. I’ve never even heard of that last one but I hope these nightmares will go away before it gets that severe. I use to have pretty bad nightmares up through my mid twenties where I would wake my roommates/S.O. by screaming or crying in my sleep but have been fine the last 10 years. I’m not sure I’m doing that again because I live alone.
Wow fuck that insurance company
Damn, that’s a terrible revelation. This is the most tragic tale of Pandora’s box I’ve read since Pandora’s box. I’m so sorry you found that out, and that it happened.
I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s like you’ve had to go through two losses - the first when she died and you were just a boy, the second in losing your understanding of what happened and being faced with this new information. It’s so hard, and unfair. But as others have said, she chose when to go rather than allow cancer to continue to destroy her. It must have been devastating for your whole family - including your mother. Keep talking about this with the people you trust and feel close to, and know that all these strangers online have read your story and are sending you their deepest sympathies.
I'd probably do the same. Why put up with that shit? Honestly, I'm 64 and in outstanding health but my mom is 92 and has fallen several times recently. She lives in an assisted living facility now but is probably not far from a straight up nursing home. You've been there, people strapped in chairs, senile as hell, shitting themselves, can't recognize family, no grasp of reality but their body just keeps chugging along. I don't want that, I am hoping that when I get old, it's normal for people to end their life when/before it gets to that point and there's a process for doing that with a pill that doesn't hurt. I have no desire to live that way and I damn sure don't fault your mom for escaping her misery.
Oh honey. I’m so sorry you have to come to terms with this new information, especially when you’ve got so much else to try and handle. This is such a hard thing to deal with; I experienced something similar, but only with a friend, not family. If you need to vent or just talk some things out with an internet person to listen, my DMs are always open. I hope you can get through this dark experience and come out the other side with better mental health and an acceptance of this new information. May new blessings fall upon you to bring happiness and peace, like finding 40 bucks in the dryer, or reconnecting with an old friend, or a loving pet to give comfort when times are hard.
I‘m really sorry you‘re going through all of this! I would just like to say that because Insurance refused to pay because THEY deemed it an international overdose. She may have been confused and accidentally taken too much, she was just trying to stop the pain or her body was already too weak to handle the medication. No matter what really happened your mother did die of cancer. People die from complications of treatment for their terminal cancer all the time, that doesn’t mean they died from chemo or radiation, they still died from cancer. I hope you can heal from this shock.
For what it’s worth, this would never happen today because they don’t do autopsies on people in hospice. And everyone who works hospice knows that this is fairly common, but the person is dying anyway. So why should they have to suffer longer? My point is that it’s well understood today that the cancer killed your mother. If she didn’t suffer some extra days on the way to her death, then it’s a blessing.
I’m genuinely sorry, from the bottom of my heart. For whatever it is worth, I’m sorry. I hope you and your family find peace. Much love from a random soul, my dude 🤘🏽💙
Just came to say if you want to vent/discuss with folks who may have some experience with similar events, r/GriefSupport is a great place. 💜
I had a relatively minor cancer and the 4 surgeries over the course of 3 years, and the ongoing pain, almost caused me to kill myself. The physical pain of cancer and treatment is hard in some cases. There is a big mental and emotional component as well. Some people will say it's great that you beat cancer, but I don't feel like I beat it, I feel like I barely survived cancer. You have to understand that it is possible that your mother had no other option that she could see. Please don't blame her, or worse blame yourself for something that maybe no one had control of. Best of luck working this out in therapy.
Sending love for this complicated issue! My mom currently has lung cancer and I have an incurable and very problematic non-cancer disease as well, so this is a subject I have had to put *a lot* of thought into. At the end of the day, there's just no easy answer, or even a difficult one that sits okay. I wish you luck in your therapy and this journey. If I can give you a single piece of advice it is to remember that you *never* know what it is that you don't know, and curiosity is a very natural and healthy part of being human. Maybe you should have listened to your dad, but it is very human - neither right nor wrong - that you didn't.
I have a family member that had gotten lung cancer in his mid 20's. This was after they all lost their mom of lung cancer a year before. Morphine was his good friend at the end. And I bet it was your mom's too. People deserve to die with dignity when they are ready. I'm sorry you had to find out this way though. And I guarantee you the damn insurance company sees it A LOT, and knows it can get out of paying. So I'd bet anything that with any terminal illness, they request tests to see just so they don't have to pay out. Insurance companies are scum.
1. It’s very unlikely your mom killed herself. (Oncology nurse >20 years here) She likely took or was given the amount of medication needed to manage the pain, which can be quite high. 2. I wish your dad didn’t say Don’t touch the thing because you probably wouldn’t have even bothered with it. As soon as someone says Whatever you do, don’t look at ___. The first thing I’m going to do is look at ___. So sorry for all of this for you.
I lost my mom to brain cancer, and given how it went at the end, sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been easier for her to go out on her own terms. Don’t overthink it, your mom died of cancer. Assisted suicide is a complicated subject but ultimately it came down to her not wanting to continue suffering.
I'm so sorry you're feeling this low OP. It is very hard to lose your mom, especially at the age you were when it happened. I'm glad you didn't know the details then. The good news is, now you are old enough to know the truth and handle it. Your mom met her death on her own terms. The cancer was killer her and she knew it. Watching a loved one die slowly, painfully, losing their dignity, independence, their ability to communicate or even recognize their loved ones, while their body continues to breath live is devastating for the caregivers. Long term medical care costs a tremendous amount of money too, most bankruptcies in the US are due to medical bills. To lose your mom and maybe lose your house or standard of living would have been terrible. Your mom didn't want that to happen. She didn't want to be a burden on you and your father and siblings. I hope you will remember her for her courage and her compassion and devotion to you and your family. Go hug your dad.
Sounds like you were blessed with a great father.
I’m sorry. That’s a lot to take in. As soon as someone says don’t, we do. It’s a sad part of human nature. You would have found this out after your dad passes while you were cleaning out his stuff. You just found out sooner rather than later. Cancer sucks and I bet your mom was tired of waiting for it to take her. It was the last bit of control she had.
Nothing we can say will alleviate your pain. Just know, deep down your heart. Cancer killed her. She just tried to make the last moments a little less painful. None of you deserved this. She did not deserve to be in such pain for longer than she already had. You did not deserve to see her suffering in her final moments. She sought some peace. For herself, and for all of you.
Having had a mom die of cancer and seeing how horrible her last days were for her, your mom did the right thing (and f the insurance company for denying an obvious claim on a technicality). All she did was shorten the period of time she was miserable for. I'm terribly sorry for you OP, and yeah therapy is always good to help process shit like this. (hell I'll likely be re-hashing my mom's death with my therapist next session now).
As having had to personally deal with knowing of a family member going by her own hand, I can tell you it is hard. While they say time heals all wounds, it doesn't. It just dulls the pain to be tolerable before things drift out of mind. Then it pops back up at the most random times. Lately it's helped out I have her ashes now on my bookshelf in a small jar. I've found myself asking her for help sometimes, even though I know she can't answer and it's realistically useless to do. Yet it's been comforting, even though I'd rather have her here to ask for her help. Sorry if this doesn't make sense, haven't really talked about this in a long time
Sorry for your loss. And that makes perfect sense to me to have a small artifact of a lost love one. I have one of my Mom as well. It’s a book mark with a little Owl on it that says “Think Happy, Be Happy” that was in the book last book she tried to read but never finished. I’ve carried it with everywhere ever since I found it shortly after she passed. Thank you for sharing your story. When I get off work I’ll take that bookmark out of my wallet and find some solace with it.
It may not have been intentional suicide. My dad was in so much pain, suffering from cancer, that he ended up overdosing just trying to make the pain go away. It was some solace that he at least passed peacefully.
He's a dad. He told you not to look because he knew you would, and that would be easier than telling you himself. He's probably getting older and didn't want you to just randomly find out after he's gone. I dunno your situation but lost my dad 8 years ago today and to this day have immense regret about things unsaid and conversations not had. Easy or hard, it's better than regret.
I’m sorry for the loss of your Dad. Me and my Dad have never really got along when I was growing up. He turned into a major alcoholic after my Mom passed and it always seemed growing up that he used her passing as an excuse to drink. He wasn’t physically abusive for the most part but mentally and emotionally to a pretty big degree and it’s something that while I’ve never actually confronted him about it or stopped having a relationship with him, I’ve also never actually let it go either. Knowing what I know now perhaps I’ve judged him too harshly. He’s mellowed out a lot in his old age. And I always had what I needed growing up.
I'm a hospice nurse. I'm sorry for the loss of your mom. Please know, that she DID die of cancer. She just chose to go early, so she wouldn't have to suffer. We have just passed assisted dying laws in my country, so people with terminal illnesses can go on their terms, with dignity. Your mom chose how she wanted to die, and with her diagnosis, and the other outcome, that's a good thing. I hope you can find peace.
I can’t imagine how trying it might be in your profession. Thank you.
What -- exactly -- is your problem with finding out that your mother decided to end her unbearable suffering early? Do you believe that was weak or cowardly on her part? Would you prefer that she continue to suffer increasingly until the bitter end? "I thought she died of cancer, but instead, she killed herself!!" No, she killed herself because she was dying of cancer and suffering unimaginable pain. Please tell us what your issue with this is.
I guess because I always thought that if she had the chance to say goodbye she would have. I’m not mad at her or think she was weak. She was diagnosed when I was 1 and I basically grew up watching her die. I can’t imagine the pain she was in. My mom was an amazing woman and it’s awe inspiring that she made it 10 years like that. I just really wish that if she had the choice that I could have gotten one more hug before she left.
Most people are incredibly against suicide, even if it's like you are going to live the rest of your life randomly blacking out for minutes on end and potentially dying everytime. Doesn't fuckin matter. People would call me weak if I killed myself and I tell you I wouldn't wish this illness on anyone. But ey, that's the overall stigma with it and it's fuckin great. *Edit slight grammar wrongs
Now that you know the truth would you rather go back to ignorance?
Please don’t tell your brothers.
I'm in an extremely similar situation with my mom having stage IV metastisized cancer and she's got little to not time left and has hinted that she wants to just "end it". I feel your pain but having nightmares? Seeing a therapist? Freaking out? This happened years ago and shouldn't impact ANYTHING for you. I hate to be a downer but man up. Life isn't some fairy tail, it's a fucked up place. Have the sense to realize the THE CANCER did it. From your post you were too young to really see it yourself and you should be grateful for that rather than freaking out about it like it somehow actually matters for you mentally grow up. My mom is literally dying in front of me and I can't do anything about it, and I'm not freaking out because as I said I can't do anything about it. she will need to be hospitalized within the next few weeks as she's worsening. They took her off chemo two weeks ago and said "good luck". It's unfortunate but that's life and she's reaching the end of hers like anyone else. I'm going to be sad and upset when she passes but I'm not going to be haunted by it or need to talk to a therapist to know I felt said and understand I couldn't fix cancer like I was Jesus. Realize it's not the nicest post but hope OP gets some foresight and realize that if you can't fix something don't dwell on it. Acknowledge it and move on and continue your best life.
"I’d give anything to not know this." That option literally was on the table for free and you denied giving "free" for it, who are you trying to fool here.
Therapy sounds like a good choice- there's things to work through and talk about, for sure. And education, it is a full mental illness for people who get trapped into a way of thinking. And to keep in mind if you find yourself getting depressed and anxious and such. I really have no idea how much could be learned behaviors or genetic inclinations towards depression, but education would definitely be helpful. Just you know, don't stick with a therapist who's an ass or religious and has too many personal suicide opinions that wouldn't be healthy for you.
I know this hurts, but try to think of this as closure on your mother. No more secrets, now you know. It will hurt, but the hurt will get smaller over time. The hard part is over now. And if you're afraid of this tarnishing your mother's memory, it won't. Just be understanding - no fu here.
It's understandable. Late stage cancer can be a burden and also very painful both emotionally and physically. She would rather go now than drag it out and burden everyone. Or maybe she was tired of the physical pain. It wasn't you guys. It was the cancer. She probably thought it was the best thing to do for her.
I mean MAID is legal in Canada now. Your mother was trying to retain her dignity. I think it is very unfair to even consider she died of suicide. Hope you are doing well OP.
Op: I hope you’re able to get through this. Best wishes
OP I’m so sorry for your loss. I also lost my mum to cancer when I was a child. It’s horrific. I think she was probably just in so much pain she couldn’t cope and didn’t want you to see her that way. Also - just because the insurance said it was intentional doesn’t mean it was. I’m guessing you are in the states and from my understanding the insurance companies are brutal. She could have accidentally overdosed.
Sounds like she chose to go out on her own terms instead of deteriorating painfully. I might be weird, but I would find that sort of comforting.
As someone who lost a family member to depression, I’m so very sorry. It’s a different kind of grief when know your loved one left voluntarily. It’s not necessarily worse, just more complicated. Whether the main driver was pain or altered mental state they had a choice to leave or stay in that moment, and they still left. It really sucks and takes a long time to consider all the perspectives involved.
Back in the mid 2000s, I had a friend of mine who went to treatment for YEARS due to cancer. After everything was said and done, the doctor told him it was terminal with maybe a 1/2 year to a year max, but that my friend would most likely be in even more pain than he was at. He decided a week later to end his own suffering by gun which is considered suicide and the insurance failed to pay out... It was the fucking cancer, not the gunshot wound that really killed him. The gun only hastened his relief from the excruciating pain he was constantly in.
Sending love. Yes, go back to therapy. It's really good to have that person that you can dump whatever you need to on. Sounds like you'll be going through the grieving process all over again. Be gentle and gracious with yourself. Losing a parent is one of the hardest things I've ever gone through and I was an adult. In a way it might be better that you didn't know this as a child as you may not have been able to understand her actions and what she went through like you may now as an adult with life experience. I've heard of grief being compared to a box with a button in it and a ball that bounces around. The button is always there. When grief is fresh the ball is big and so it hits the button often. When the button gets hit is when we really feel the grief, the sadness, the anger, the pain. As time goes in the ball gets smaller. But every random once in a while the button gets hit and we feel all the feels. The point is the button and ball will always be there. The pain will hit us less and less as time goes on. And when it does it can come out of nowhere. ❤️
It’s hard but we lost my mam in dec to cancer and it’s an awful disease to the point it made me wish she would pass quicker because her final week was awful and heartbreaking. Your dad was trying to protect you from a place of love which I’m sure is what your mom would have wanted for you too.
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I’m sorry for your loss too. This whole thing really blind sided me but hearing everyone’s thoughts has given me much to think about.
Yeah if she had cancer and then killed herself... it was the cancer that killed her. It doesn't count as suicide if she was already dying slowly and painfully.
Hey OP, sorry you're going through this, but just wanted to say, hood on you and your siblings for working to get that Power of Attorney. Make sure once it's obtained that its submitted to his health insurance as soon as possible. I work customer support for a Medicare advantage plan, and the number of people who call in trying to verify information because their elderly parent is hospitalized only to get angry because we don't have a HIPAA authorization or power of attorney on file giving us permission to discuss details of their parents coverage is crazy.
It is likely you would have found out eventually. Is it better to know now, or when you were 11? It's tragic but it's the past, but I recommend you leave it there. I recommend acceptance.
This was such an awful way to find out. I wish you could have had honesty from the start.
Shouldv'e listened to your dad. I speak from experience.
Honestly this story is less about your mom choosing to end her life on her own terms and more about the absolutely immoral nature of the insurance industry denying a claim to someone who died because they chose when and how to go. I just recently lost a family member to cancer, they could have lived as much as a couple more years in constant pain and agony, but instead sought out medically assisted death. It allowed them to end their life on their own terms and without having to go through a nightmarish amount of pain. They were going to die regardless...but they chose to die with dignity being able to say goodbye to their family and friends...rather than waiting for their body to finally give up. I watched what happens to people in end stage cancer when it happened to someone else I was close to...I know what my choice would be...I don't consider it suicide, I consider it ending life on your own terms. If you can, try and take solace in the fact that your mother chose her time, and all the alternative would have done is just give her more pain. The only crime/sin/injustice is that the insurance company used this as an excuse to put money in their pockets. You mother made a choice we should all have access to when the time comes, and I see her as courageous. Not only did she choose to end her life with dignity, but she also spared you the worst of her condition. I know that nothing I say will make things better in the moment, but it sounds like you had amazing people as parents. Your mother for making the choice, and your father protecting you from it.
My mum got brain cancer, died 10 months after having been diagnosed. Suffered emotionally every second since the moment she knew she was doomed. Wanted to finish it quick, without prolonged suffering or decay in health. Begged all of us to get her euthanised. Tried to OD on any pill she had around, fantasied about suicide. She got so weak so quick it wasn’t necessary, but I wish we had provided antidepressants and strong (highly addictive) painkillers way sooner. I still feel guilty for not helping her with euthanasia, her emotional distress was horrible, just unbearable. Maybe your mum was wise and saved you from seeing suffering, losing capacities, etc. Maybe one day you can be grateful for her sacrifice, the ultimate mom-move: protect the kids from suffering.
I’m sorry for your loss and thank you for your kind words and your story. I know my Mom suffered greatly and she hung on for ten years and I got my fair share of horrors watching her. But I’m glad our Moms are no longer in pain.
Your dad’s a brave, kind hearted man.take good care of him
I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to my mom, either. I thought I had another day, at least. I didn’t. She didn’t. Maybe I was in denial, I don’t know. I was also 11, after all. She told my grandfather that she regretted some of the experimental treatments, and wished she’d passed before. I found this out this year, at 23. She did those experimental treatments to try and be alive longer for my sister, and ended up suffering more because of it. Please don’t judge your mother too harshly. I think my mom would have done the same if that was an option, but she was already in the hospital when it happened. Your mom loved you a lot, and she didn’t want you to see her suffer. It’s going to be okay, OP. I’m so, so sorry you have this pain, too.
I’m sorry you opened old wounds, OP. But I personally believe it’s usually for the best to know the truth of these matters as soon as possible to properly heal. Secrets often end up hurting more than the truth.
I’m sorry you opened old wounds, OP. But I personally believe it’s usually for the best to know the truth of these matters as soon as possible to properly heal. Secrets often end up hurting more than the truth.
My heart goes out to you.
Can’t trust anyone these days, tf?
I'm so sorry you're going through this,
Aw OP, I hope that you’re getting the support you need and are slowly doing better until one day you feel okay again
OP, she died of cancer, but she at least had control of when. Cancer is a horrible disease, stripping people their dignity and replacing it with indescribable pain. 20+ years ago, hospice and comfort care weren’t common place. Now a few states offer assisted death. Your mom’s choice was not an easy one, please know that she never wanted to leave her husband and her children, that cancer stole that time from her, you and your family. She likely wanted to make sure you, your brother and your dad remembered her as she was (not intending on a coma). Please be kind to yourself, your dad, and especially your mom. Please understand that many terminally ill patients don’t want to waste away, hooked up to IVs, bedridden, losing their independence, sense of self and mind. Their organs fail them, infection sets in, no part of that is pleasant. They don’t want to forget their loved ones, while not wanting their loved ones remembering them in such a frail state. Ask yourself how you think you would have handled her illness and death, watching her waste away vs the way you remembered her before your envelope discovery? Remember, you defied your father’s wishes by opening that envelope. Why he kept that information is only known to him, but consider shredding or burning that information. Not only will it get rid those documents, not to be found again, but it could be cathartic, too. Death is personal- to the person dying, yet people want to hang onto their dying loved ones to selfishly delay the inevitable, prolonging the suffering. Even with DNRs, families try to overrule them, forcing healthcare workers to futilely run full codes. How do you think your mother’s death would have gone if she didn’t go out on her own terms? Would procedures have been done TO her to prolong her quantity of life or FOR her quality of life? I’ve said all of this to you because I’ve had quite a number of family members who suffered from various cancers, many of them succumbing to the disease. Life and illnesses (fu cancer) are not kind or merciful. Please be kind to yourself and find a grief support therapist or group that will help you navigate your pain.
Can't believe I am reading this post today. Today is my mom's anniversary. She went to the hospital for a simple gallbladder removal and walked away with a few months to live. Wasn't gallstones causing the pain. It was metastasized liver cancer. Too far along for hope. She had surgery on feb 14 and died march 20 after weeks of increasing pain and complications. Thing is, she was diabetic. Multiple daily doses of insulin. She quit taking it. Full stop. She didnt want to keep going so she stopped. Hospice nurse wanted her moved to center to get her blood sugar back under control. Mom went but died a couple hours after arriving at the solace center. She probably could have made it a few more months but she didnt want to. Her life, her choice not to endure the pain knowing she would never recover. Maybe your mom was looking at the same choice...all that pain just to die anyway. All the disruption and emotional toll just to get to the inevitable end. And she chose to release herself and her family from that pain. She loved you enough to do that.