My Mother Died

I am living the most difficult moment of my life at this moment. “My mother has died.”

On the 11th of another, I received a message from my sister-in-law saying, “Casimiro, please call because mom had a relapse in the hospital.” That message was worrisome to me, I called and learned that my mother had been taken to the emergency room, but as bad as she was in the hospital she had no medical attention and was given no medication to bring down her high fever; the hospital simply released her home. Knowing what happened, my pregnant wife, in her last week of pregnancy, volunteered to take care of my mother because I work offshore. My nephew when he heard about the situation decided to go and take care of his mother instead of my wife so that he would not have to leave the city we live into the city where my mother was living in her mother’s condition.

Doesn’t my mother have someone who could take care of her?

We are 5 brothers, all-male and I am the last son, all the sons are married and each one lives in a different city in the country and others abroad. So anything that happens to our mother or father, we were simply communicated by themselves or the neighborhood or my cousin’s wife who lives near my parents’ house. That’s why we were sometimes a little late.

How Did It Start?

On October 9th my mother felt fevers, and in her town, the hospitals don’t take patients on weekends, so on Monday morning early she went for a consultation to find out what she was feeling, and that’s where she relapsed, from then on she didn’t feel any relief, on the third day she was hospitalized. Knowing that she was hospitalized, I left my work on the 14th night and went to see my mother in the hospital, I found my mother pale, with one arm inflamed because of the serum application, a part of her lip with a sore because of the intensity of the internal fever. My mother was already urinary incarcerated, they had to apply a catheter so that she could urinate, and every time she urinated, she felt terrifying pains that even the doctors could not explain. All of us were distraught without understanding what was happening, and the doctors not giving us any news made us more and more worried.

On the 15th at 5 pm, the doctors announced the evacuation of the inner city to the capital city for better care. “It was the most difficult first moment I had faced in front of my mother in 28 years.” My mother went from the hospital bed to a wheelchair, from the wheelchair to the ambulance, and from the ambulance straight to the hospital bed where she did not leave until October 18, when she took her last breath.

Our arrival in the Capital City of my parents

We arrived in Ndalatando that is the capital of the province at 20 hours; she was taken to the emergency room and after the diagnosis, they applied a serum, this serum had a good effect from Friday night to Saturday, because from night today, my mother was feeling better, than the other day, the pain that she felt when she urinated had already ceased, she couldn’t get up to sit, on Saturday 16th she was already sitting and she managed to wash her mouth by herself with the support of me and my aunt. She had even told a joke, all of us in the admission room smiled; this look on my mother’s face relieved us of fearful worries and the day went on.

Because of Covid-19, the hospitals were restricted for visitors, so anyone who wanted to see their mother had to go to the hospital at 4 a.m., which was the time that everyone was allowed to go in and see patients. Me, my father, two aunts, three uncles, and my nephew spent our nights in the hospital corridors to stay close to everything that the hospital would announce about Mom’s condition.

On Sunday, October 17 I left the hospital because on Monday, October 18 I would start work. Mom had the best progress, she had already gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom to take a shower with the help of my aunt. This reassured me and I was released to work. On Monday at 11:40 am I received a message from my nephew saying: “Mom needs a blood transfusion urgently. “The blood type was A+. I am the carrier of this blood type, at that very moment I notified the general services area of the company I work for, and a car and a driver were authorized to support me to the hospital so that I could go and donate blood. When I arrived at the hospital, my mother was no longer the one who had woken up cheerful the day before, nor did it seem that 22 hours ago she got out of bed to take a shower. She was choking from lack of air, all because there was not enough blood in her guts, I questioned the doctor saying, “why did they only request blood after she arrived in that state?” There were no answers, I was taken out of the inpatient room and immediately went to the blood collection bank; believe it or not, neither I who usually dictate blood nor all the other usual donors had any. All of them were diagnosed with a blood infection, and as time went on, we ran two radio ads asking for donors, all of them were again detected with a blood infection.

There were about 12 people including me and my nephew, no one passed the tests. I was already thinking something was wrong because we were all frequent donors. I had to go back to work because we had to release transportation, at 8:25 PM my nephew sent a message saying: brother already showed up donor don’t worry. I was relieved and showed the message to all my colleagues with great enthusiasm. At 20:50 my uncle calls me and says: Casimiro, mom finally died!

Creepy!

It was the hardest call of my life. My mother died!