Got the results of mom’s post mortem yesterday. A sudden massive pulmonary thromboembolism. It helps knowing that there was nothing my husband an I could have done. No amount of CPR would have worked. I still have the ‘what ifs’ though. I guess it’s only natural to feel guilty. I feel like I should have realised she had a DVT in her leg…
Has anyone else on here experienced this? I would really like to know if they felt they missed something and should’ve realised…
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Hi sarah,
I have a similar experience. My lovely mum suffered a massive brain hemorrhage last June. She was 74 and skipping round the house the week beforehand. I took her into hospital for a day operation. She was coming home the following day but had a severe bleed on the brain whilst chatting away in thd recovery room
Her post mortem revealed a spontaneous bleed on the brain completely unconnected to the surgery.
I felt so guilty for so long. Why fudbg I notice something wrong? How could I allow the hospital to do an operation? Did the hospital miss signs my mum was going to have a brain hemorrhage??
Now, a year and 2 months down the line, I can see that no one could have known. Mum had a weak vessel in her brain. Nothing could be done.
The what ifs still plague me from time to time, but they will get better.
Our mums knew they were loved and that’s what I try to focus on.
Cheryl x
Hello Sarah,
Some years ago, my husband had a severe problem with an embolism on his lung Which almost killed him. It transpired that the dvt had travelled straight to his lung without going to his leg. Maybe this is what happened in your case.
My thoughts are with you. X
Oh Sarah you poor thing. That guilt and what ifs are dreadful in the beginning. It does get better. I still get moments like that myself. I think it’s normal when someone dies to question everything. I just tell myself that if I knew how serious it was I would have done something. But I did not so therefore I can’t act on something that I knew nothing about.
From what I have heard those DVT are sneaky buggers that happen instantaneously with little or no obvious warning. I had a terrible pain in my leg the other day. My husband just dismissed it as a pulled muscle. And it was a pulled muscle. But it could have been fatal. How can we walk around thinking of every symptom as fatal. We can’t. We can’t live our lives like that. Life is fragile. It’s one of the things are minds are now adjusting to
Oh Sarah, I understand completely what you are going through and my heart goes out to you. My mum died a month ago today at home and very suddenly. The post mortem revealed a massive pulmonary embolism. That morning she managed to call her partner at work. He rushed home and found her struggling for breath. She was on a work call on zoom and he heard her colleagues encouraging mum to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth. She collapsed and lost consciousness. The paramedics worked on her for nearly an hour but it was no good and she passed away at home. I was on the first day of my holiday in Greece at the time (which we’d only booked just a week earlier as we thought we wouldn’t be able to get away this year) and there was literally nothing I could do. Like you, I keep wondering if there was anything I could have done. She thinks she had covid back in the first week of lock down (when literally NOBODY wanted to go to hospital for risk of either catching it (if they hadn’t actually got it) or for burdening the NHS. She fortunately recovered but since then had been struggling for breath and just thought it was an after effect. I can’t help thinking that if only she had got that checked out… but then I know to do so is just pointless now. I spoke to her just the day before she passed and it was one of our lovely, happy phone calls and she said she was looking forward to visiting us when we got home from holiday now that the restrictions were not so rigid. At least I have that… our last conversation was normal, happy and she appeared perfectly ‘normal’. I’m so very sorry for your loss, the pain is just indescribable but Sarah, remember you are not alone. I wish you all my love and hugs at this incredibly difficult time. X