Rosa

Mom and Son

Rosa (my mother in law) had 2 quadruple bypass surgeries on July 24 (the second one only hours after the first because one of her veins they bypassed with was bleeding internally). She was weak but was able to come home shortly after the surgery. Her recovery was slow, but she was making small steps of progress.

Then, on the 23 of August she was admitted into the hospital due to a sever infection that pushed its way into her breast bone. They opened her up on the 25th to clean her up and made the decision to leave her open so they can administer antibiotics directly to the bone.

Her birthday was the 30th of August. Everyone stopped by to wish her a Happy Birthday! The boys and I hadn't been there to see her during her last hospital stay until her birthday due to the flu running through our home.

On September 3, 2008 she had surgery to close her chest up.They took some of her right pectoral muscle to help close her chest, which was going to take longer than they would have liked. I told CC that morning that I thought he should go see her before her surgery to spend time with her. He said he felt like he should anyways, so we were on the same page.

He went and stayed there all day. Finally, he came home and we had a few errands to run. She came out of surgery around 7ish and she was doing, alright.

At 9 pm Tony (CC's dad) called us and said she wasn't going to make it through the night and that we needed to get there ASAP. I immediately called my mom to come watch the boys for us. We went to the hospital and we found out that she was on blood pressure medicine to keep her bp up. Due to the instability of her bp, they couldn't give her pain medication. So after a few hours of surgery, she had no pain medication. The doctors were pretty sure she had bleeding on the brain but they couldn't give her a MRI because that in itself would kill her.

At 10:30, 3 very great men from church came to give her a blessing. While they were in with her, the family gathered together to discuss what was going on. The medicine was keeping her alive. She said she was a complete DNR. Rosa never wanted to be rescued. She said if the Lord wants her, she doesn't want anyone to interfere with that.

The family decided to stop the pain she was in and to stop the medicine. The good thing is that when they stopped the bp medicine, they would be able to give morphine. So she wouldn't be in pain. We got back there and the nurse informed us that the breathing tube also was keeping her alive and that it would prolong her death.

The family also agreed to take out the breathing tube.

Tony, his sister Chavela, Lollie, CC and I were in the room and we stayed there with her while she took her last breaths. It was so hard to watch but I felt that it was an honor to be with her in her last moments. Elias came in right after she passed to be with her as well.

Shortly after midnight on September 4th, Rosa returned to be with Heavenly Father.

The next couple days were a whirlwind of activity preparing for her funeral. I think I need to go make dinner, so I will add more later. I have so much more to write and I SHOULD have written this each day. But as we wrote the eulogy, I realized how much easier this would be with a journal!

I need to make sure that not only do I tell my children a MILLION stories, but I also need to journal the important milestones of my life and my boys life. I love my boys so much and I want to make my death as easy on them as possible. If there is even such a thing.CC's graduation! (Clockwise from top left) Elva, Tony, Rosa, CC, Kayla, Wyatt, Lollie, Cynthia, Sergio, Kane and Jr. All in Wyoming!

At the hospital for Martin's birth. (Clockwise from top left) Martin, Tony, Elva, Kane, Lollie, Rosa, CC, Wyatt, Ana'Li and Elias