Hello,
My name is Sarah. 22 months ago my 17 year old daughter passed away suddenly at home in her bedroom. My husband had to give cpr while I was on the phone to the emergency services. I am ridden with guilt and blame, my guilt for not taking her to be checked for what I thought was just a panic attack as she has always been an anxious person. And blame on the hospital for not keeping up with her regular blood tests for her inter-cranial hypertension. When we first found out she had that we were told it’s extremely rare that someone of her age have it. We were told it’s normally picked up on when they are very young or very old. The medication she was taking have blood clot as a possible side effect, which is what she passed away from but we have been told 2 things aren’t linked. But we have also been told by many professionals that it’s extremely rare that someone of her age pass way from those circumstances. I’m sick of hearing how rare things are when 2 extremely rare things have caused the passing of my precious daughter!
I can’t and won’t grief and accept what’s happened. I somehow convince myself that she’s just out with friends doing normal teenage stuff. But my 10 year old son and 11 year old nephew witnessed her passing. My son understandably is struggling he’s angry at the world which cause him to lash out at school, the school have been very supportive with saying the right things but haven’t always acted on them. I just want them to try for just one day to live the life he has to, one minute he’s playing on his Segway with his 3 sisters, parents and other family members and the next he’s watching his sister take her last breath. It’s hard enough as an adult to try and make sense of it all let alone a 10 year old child. He also suffer from severe anxiety, which I blame myself for as I also suffer from it but thought I was hiding it well- clearly not! We’re on a waiting list to get him child bereavement counselling but as we all know it’s in high demand. I’m worried the school are going to permanently exclude him before he has the chance to get the help he so desperately need
My heart aches for you
To me it sounds like your daughter was blessed with the most loving parents who even now want the best for her and answers
My mum died unexpectedly nine weeks ago. I did cpr and had paramedics on seen in moments. She had had a heart valve replacement years ago and her follow up scan last year was flowing, in fact docs always praised her “clean tubes “. Her 2nd knee needed replacing but no one looked at it during the pandemic etc and when the GP saw it a few weeks before she passed she was horrified, and I suspect guilty having her also on opioids for years. I wonder if the lack of mobility, the effect on her mental health etc. In fact the day she passed we were meant to be seeing the surgeon at last - a new beginning, getting her mobile again
The pm came back ischemic valvular and heart disease, even the GP said “what”. All I know is none of us could have revived her. And like you though it is told to me I still feel guilty, should I have pressed for more check ups, should I not have moved her, moved her sooner…what if, what if, what if.
I can sense nothing but love in your post, and grief is love with nowhere to go.
There is lots of support here. Please be gentle with yourself.
Thank you for your reply and I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your mum. I know we are supposed to trust in the professionals but I can’t help but feel because of covid nothing else seemed to have mattered and many lives have been lost because of it. My daughters appointments were changed to video calls, you cannot assess someone properly through a video call!
I know you and I shouldn’t live our lives with the “what ifs” but how can we not when we’ve both had some of the people we love the most taken from us.
As a parent I wouldn’t want my child to feel how you are so please don’t blame yourself. Your mum knows you love her and done your very best for her!
I can’t tell you it gets easier because I don’t believe it do, I just hope you manage to find some peace. I’m not religious in anyway but I do believe our loved ones are all around us and send us signs to let us know although we may not be able to physically see them they are most definitely hear by our sides 
During covid I had 3 family members taken from me. My uncle passed away the beginning of March 2020, you already know about my daughter and then exactly a year after my daughter my cousin who is also one of my closest friends passed away from cancer which should have been picked up sooner had the doctors have listened to her to start with especially as she had already previously had cancer
Life just hits in tsunamis doesn’t it?
Two days after mum died my friends brother died, 44 and we don’t know why
I have been able to see her as I had to travel north. Feels surreal, being at school together and all those formative years (in which her brother would chase us with newts) and now we are supporting each other through this
I do believe in an afterlife, always quite firmly though am currently miffed Mum hasn’t visited though things have happened like a Robin visiting and the auto opening bin I got her keeps opening at odd times! But I am greedy. I want a full body apparition and an hours chat, or a dream which is fully real. I dread losing that faith but don’t think I will
It certainly does. It has me now waiting for the next loved one to be snatched from me.
I hope you and your friend manage to find comfort in each other. I have lost contact with many family members over the past 22 months. One minute they were all there and I felt like I being smothered by everyone and now I feel like life for everyone else has gone back to “normal” while mine has stood still but completely different all at the same time. I have become a much colder person towards the people who have just walked away from us (me my husband children and grandson) without even so much as a message just to say “thinking of you”
That little robin will be your mum just coming to say I’m still here. The day after my daughter passed we had a butterfly land on our decking in our back garden we have never had one for the 15 years we’ve lived here, that was my daughter letting us know she is here with us that she’s not going anywhere. She always use the butterfly thing on her Snapchat so we know it’s her. I completely agree with you about the conversation etc. I’m not ready to see a medium or anything like that though, as I’d be to scared that if she didn’t come through that she’s blaming me for what’s happened. Although we went to stay along the Norfolk broads over Christmas and my sister see a medium and my daughter came through and she asked if the song no mountain high means anything, it wasn’t until we thought about where we were and the lyrics about no mountain high no river wide to keep me from getting to you, that we realised that she was telling us she is with us
Nothing like something so awful happening to find out who your friends are
People I thought would be in touch haven’t, people I thought of as being acquaintances have been absolute rocks.
I live in fear of being dropped by friends who are standing by, or boring them etc but as people say, if they are truly friends they will stand by and know there is no time limit on grief though I do think until people have been through it themselves they just don’t get it (or they are empathy free full stop)
So sorry for the pain you are feeling, I can’t say a magic word to make things right, but you will find caring friends who know just how you feel on these posts, so keep sharing and accept our loving friendship Ann
Thank you for your kind words
I’m sure friends are more than happy for you to share your grief and pain with them. I’ve had many people say to me that they have no words to help me but they are willing to listen if I want to scream, shout, cry or just sit in silence. So your friends will no doubt feel the same
I’m so glad you have good friends who are there for you. They are worth their weight in gold.
Sadly Beki is far from being alone in finding that people you expected to support you have been conspicuous by their absence, and some you hardly knew have reached out to you.
Accept the good and try to let go of the not so good.
Love to you, Ann
That is very true. I have learnt first hand that family and friends will walk away when things get hard and return to their “happy” lives like nothing has happened. I no longer speak to my parents because of this and they are 2 of the people who are supposed to support their children through everything! I can literally count the family members who I have stayed in contact with on 2 hands. But as we all know life is too short to spend it loving people who don’t deserve your time of day!
Hi so sorry for your loss I lost my youngest daughter Leah who passed away this January due to breast and liver cancer it was very aggressive it was 13 months from Start to finish she was a beautiful clever funny woman and a excellent mum to her 3 yr old son Theo I’m struggling terribly the pain in my chest is horrendous and sometimes I dread waking up in the morning as soon as I open my eyes the despair is there but I come on here now and pour my heart out to these lovely people who are going through the same grief as me and you take care luv xx shellyanne xx