It was a pretty normal Tuesday morning, 12/15/2020 and my mother called me — she said she was having horrible pains, could I come over.

I drove to her nearby house and sure enough she needed to go to the hospital. That entire day was a fiasco and the communication from the hospital was extremely poor. (It is important to note here that on Thursday of the previous week she took a COVID test and Monday received the negative results, she was also again tested in the ER on 12/15 and received negative results.) I did find out that my Mom was going to have emergency surgery that evening. (That whole day was a mess with communication with hospital and consent forms. I was not permitted to stay with her in the ER. I was listed as the person to contact – no contact was made.)

My Mom had the surgery and I was able to visit her the next day. Surgery seemed to go well and she seemed pretty good the next day. I was literally skipping out of the hospital when I left because I was so happy about how well it all went. Due to visiting policies, I was not able to go back to see her until Saturday.

But, on Saturday she just didn’t seem as awake and alert as she was on Wednesday. She said she just didn’t feel good. My sister went on Sunday and called me to say Mom just doesn’t seem like she feels well. I visited on Monday and she was not feeling well at all. We kept telling the hospital staff — they said it was just the hospital stay — it makes you that way.

The next day she was sent home in late afternoon. I stayed with her all day Wednesday 12/23/2020. She did not feel well, was super tired and didn’t have an appetite. By evening she spiked a high fever, high enough that I became concerned and called her surgeon. Her surgery site looked fine so she took more Tylenol and tried to rest.

My poor mother moaned and groaned all night long in misery. Finally in the morning she was so sick I knew we were going to have to go back to the hospital. We thought maybe it was a UTI. I made a few calls to doctors and they said to take her into the ER.

Not long after I dropped her off at the ER I received a call from my sister — she’d tested positive for COVID-19. On January 8, 2021 my mother lost her battle with the nasty virus and passed away.

We are all still devastated, in shock, traumatized, and horribly heartbroken over the loss of our mother.