I am my mother's daughter

my heros

Today make two weeks since my mother's funeral. It was a beautiful service. People came from other states to pay their respects. I am overwhelmed by how many people she left an impression with. I have had people I don't even know send me cards and email about how she either helped them or made them laugh. I miss her badly. I am LDS and I do have a testimony of the Atonement. I know that families can be together forever and I do try to keep an eternal perspective. I know that if I live my life right I can be with her again but I also know that it is ok for me to be sad and to feel hurt. I lost my mother. My kids will never know how wonderful she was. I can't call her when I have something important to tell her, even though I still do just to hear her voice on the recording. Every time I close my eyes I see her face and the thing that scares me the most is the day that I close my eyes and don't. I do not feel sorry for myself. I know the Lord has a plan and it is not my job to ask questions I am just supposed to have faith and do my part.... but it still hurts. I do trust the Lord and I am grateful for trials, I think they are the biggest blessings an individual can have. It is through trials that we are given the greatest opportunitys to grow. My mom taught me to be strong, to hold my head up, to remember that there is nothing that I can't do, and most of all she taught me the gospel and to trust in the Lord with all my heart. I do trust the Lord, I have lost my Brother, Grandfather, Grandmother, and My Mother in a less then a year and a half...... I just wonder what else he has in store for me? What ever it is I am ready and willing. I am my mother's daughter.

Denial

Today my dad was talking about us all getting out of the house and going to a movie and my response was, "well no I will stay and look after mom." I guess it is still not real.

Please just don't say anything

Shes gone. She passed away at 8:05pm. Its not ok. Its not going to be ok. It hurts.

It's all my fault

My mom and dad would have been married for 25 years this December

There is never a dull moment. My mom woke up and was hysterical. She has what they call "terminal restlessness" what this means is that her body is getting ready to let go but her mind is not. Then her mind and her body get into this battle and there is no winner. She keeps trying to get out of bed and walk around but she doesn't have enough strength to do it with help much less by herself. Because her mind is starting to go she is under the impression that I have kidnapped her and am holding her against her will.

Last night my brother went into her room to check on her and caught her just in time before she fell. She grabbed his arms and dug her nails in. I put myself between them and assured her that it was OK and to just hug me. I thought that if she let go of him and hugged me I could get her back to bed safely... I thought right. I was able to get her to the bed safely little did I know that it was I that wasn't safe. Once I got her on the bed she proceeded to wrap her hands around my neck and choke me. She screamed "let me go you tell me the truth LIAR LIAR!" She then told me she was going to call the cops and I would pay for what I have been doing to her. What has happened? My mother hates me. She thinks that I am not her daughter. She told me that I wasn't her daughter and she wanted to talk to her real daughter the one that doesn't lie to her. I try to constantly remind myself that this is not my mom. This is a person that looks like my mom and it is her medicine talking. I feel so bad all the time. Every time I give her medicine I have to remind myself that this is what the hospice nurse told me to do and that I am not hurting her. The hospice nurse told me that as her body shuts down and because of the obstructions that she has it would be hurtful to give her food, all she would do is throw it up. If I am doing what I was told to do and what is right then why do I feel so bad? Why does she hate me? I love my mom with all my heart. She has taught me a lot, especially over the last two years. She has taken the challenge of cancer with a smile on her face and with love in her heart. She has pushed herself and done nothing but things for others. She is strong and powerful and a force to be reckoned with. If I turn out to have half of the testimony and conviction that my mother has I will consider myself blessed.

This is my all time picture of my mom. When she found out she had cancer and she was going to lose her hair she cut it off and dyed it hot pink, flipped off the camera and ____ to cancer!

This is when her hair grew back between chemo treatments, I think she looks beautiful.

Loooong night

So last night my mom shift ended about 1am, then of course I couldn't sleep so I decided to watch a movie which put me getting to be around 2:30am. At 3:30am I got woken up by my brother, "sarah mom woke up and tried to get out of bed and fell! she is hysterical, I need your help!" From 3:30am to almost 5am I sat with my mom on the floor calming her down and eventually getting her back to bed. I finally was able to go back to sleep when my brother woke me up once again at 6:30am cause he had an appointment to look at a car and he needed me to watch mom. So I went back to check on my mom and she once again was awake and trying to escape her hospital bed. From 6:30am until 9am I was verbally wrestling with my mom to keep her from getting up. As I was talking to her I noticed some bruses that formed on her hip and shoulder from where she fell. Now it looks like I beat my mother, which I am not gonna lie at one point last night when she was yelling at me the thought crossed my mind. Don't worry I did not act on my feelings. Anyways there is still 11 hours left in the day anything can happen!

Mom didn't want to sleep alone anymore so my dad crawled in bed with her I thought it was cute

Pictures

My puppy

Fourth of July and Paul Mitchell
I was a hair show model for Paul Mitchell

Camping with my family

My best friends graduation in cali

I have decided that blogs are just boring without pictures.... so there are some of the things we have been up to since we moved to Utah.

P.S mom is put to bed and overall she had a good day. I would like to go to bed but my mom shift doesn't end for a few more hours so this is what keeps me busy.

So far so good

With medicine, a sponge bath, new sheets, teeth brushed, and new pajamas for my mom all before 9 am this morning is off to a good start. The only hard part about this morning was convincing my mom that the IV of morphine was not a chain that I was dragging her around with while trying to convince her not to pull it out, and opening the door. Opening the door to her room is always frightening. I wont up to give my mom her daily medicine and as always that was the scariest part of the day. I put one hand on the door handle, took a deep breath, and prepare myself for what I might find. I am always afraid I might open the door and find her dead but at the same time I wouldn't want anyone else but me to find her. Let me just sayt that in case by some miracle someone besides my friend James reads this I am not a self loathing person. I understand that I am not the only person in the world that has had a loved one suffer the way my mom is suffering and my heart goes out to anyone who has ever had to watch someone they love suffer, but this is my mom and I don't deal with things well. On the outside I am fine but the inside I am not. I wont talk about it out loud not even to my husband so this is it. It is still early in the day who knows what the rest of it will bring.

A little too late

So I do not update this enough. There is so much that has happened so far. From moving to Utah, to starting school at Paul Mitchell, to making two California trips, to getting a puppy, to celebrating our one year anniversary, to Ethan's sister's wedding in Virginia life has been one wild ride. I normally am a very private person but since I am 98% positive that no one reads this I have decided to take my blog in a different direction. Along with being something that updates people on the wonderful lives of the Clark family it will also be a place where I can't let my feelings out. According to my mother in law I am the kind of person that normally "rolls my sleeves up and get to work no matter what the circumstance is." I have decided that for the most part this is true but sometimes people just crack including me.

My mother has suffered form ovarian cancer for a while now. She is strong, independent, funny, outgoing, and determined. Three weeks ago we took her to the hospital because she was dehydrated, before this visit she was doing well and then everything changed. The doctor said she had a blockage in her bole. Then the time frame she had left went from 3 to 5 years to 2 to 4 months. Then next day once I had time to swallow and digest the new information I went back to the hospital to discuss what our options are at this visit then time frame narrowed again from 2 to 4 months to 2 to 3 days. It has been a roller coater of emotions. One minutes shes looking better the next she is down for the count.

She is at home now and on hospice. The hardest part is that she is not the mom that I know. She is an empty shell now. She looks like my mom, she smells like my mom, but she is not my mom. It is hard to explain. I have to give her medicine every four hours, she can't got to the bathroom by herself, I can't leave her for more then 10 minutes for fear that she might try to get up and walk around on her own and fall and hurt herself. I love my mom more then anything and I consider myself lucky to have this time to take care of my mother. I just want to emotionally detach myself from this situation but this blog proves that I can't. My heart hurts, my head hurts, my body aches all the time. I feel so completely drained. What is going to happen? How long will it take? These are questions that plague my mind constantly. I can't get my mind to stop long enough to sleep.