On April 28, 2004, my mother, Loretta West, fell and broke her hip. She has had osteoporosis for the past 10 years, and this was her third hip break during that time. During that time, she also had shrunk in size from 5'2" to 4'7". She was always in constant pain because of her fractures, but I never could have guessed what was going to happen next...
 
After getting a pin in her hip, she was sent to Montclair Nursing Home to rehabilitate. She did not like being there, but she coped, actually becoming more friendly with those that ate with her than I had seen her be in years. She was getting better, her leg stronger so she could walk with the walker.
 
I went to eat with her on Mother's Day at the Nursing Home, and we got along fine. Memorial Day weekend, my dad decided to go visit some relatives, so I visited mom more, helping to put her to bed at night.
 
Mom was going to get to go home on June 25th...
 
But that didn't happen...
 
On June 16th, at night, she seemed a little bit out of it. I took her to supper, like I always did, and then left. She just didn't seem right to me, but she was smiling and talking to everyone like normal. Dad called me that night with the same concerns, but we really didn't think nothing of it. In hindsight, we could have saved her life...
 
June 17th, in the morning, she had a seizure, and was taken to the hospital. She had a second seizure on the way in. However, she was still coherent...but not after the third one that she had in the emergency room. She went into a vegitative state, because the blood thinner medicine, Cumadin, that she was perscribed had caused a spontaneous hemmorhage in her brain. She never recovered, and got progressively worse. On Tuesday, June 22, dad and I made the fateful decision to follow mom's living will wishes.
 
On Wednesday, June 23rd, at 8:00 pm, Loretta Helen West left this world for a better place.
 
I've cried and cried. I was very close to my mother. I loved her dearly, and losing her has hit me very, very hard. As an only child, all I have left is my dad. I'm not married, don't even have a girlfriend because I am too shy and geeky. Except for a few other close relatives, I have had no one to lean on during this time except dad.
 
I'm crying right now as I write this. It has hurt so much.
 
I will post mom's eulogy I wrote in the next day or so, as well as her obituary.
 
I still cannot believe she is gone from my life.