In 2010, my mother, Deena Eliosoff, was diagnosed with Systemic Scleroderma which gave her Pulmonary Fibrosis. Her health deteriorated rapidly, to the point where she would be stuck in the hospital for weeks, if not months at a time on a semi-regular basis. I would visit her almost every day when she was in the hospital and visit her every week when she was home, and she would bear her difficulties with grace and dignity, but it was hard watching her go from a reasonably healthy individual to someone who could not walk across the house without extreme difficulty. Sadly, she was too old and frail to risk any experimental treatments or lung transplants.
About three years into her diagnosis, she suffered from a major medical complication and required intubation, but her prognosis was not good. We had flown in my brother and his family, as well as her brother and his wife, with the expectation that she would die that night when we pulled her tube, because it wasn’t helping. Then, a few hours later, we got a phone call.
It was her, complaining about being bored.
She actually survived and wanted something to read (she was an avid bookworm). We gladly brought her books and were extremely thankful for her continued survival.
While she would continue to diminish, she would still live on for another two years, and would continue to live, bearing her difficulties with a quiet strength.
I miss you mom.