Quote:
Originally posted by MrPheer
Ok nobody has asked so I'll jump on the grenade here...
Why did she shoot herself?
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Don't worry man...I honestly don't mind answering.
Sometimes I feel like I just want to grab the first person I can find and tell them everything about what happened.
My mother over the last year had been sick on and off. She was in and out of the hospital. She was doing things like falling down alot, hitting her head etc.
She also had severe knee and back problems. The knee problems were somewhat helped by surgery. Her right knee was completely replaced.
She was supposed to have back surgery to see if that would help some of that pain.
In the mean time she was getting worse. There was one time she actually went into a coma after hitting her head and almost died.
Her memory was failing due to this, and imo from the heart attack she had about 4 or 5 years ago. Even though she had a heart attack her problems were manageable...she had a prolapsed (sp?) valve and if it got worse they were just going to replace it.
As you can see, she had some serious health issues. Then all of a sudden she gets a toothace. She schedules an appointment with a dentist to have this tooth removed.
This was I think in January. The infection in the tooth quickly attacked the weakest part of her body. You'd think it'd be her heart, but it was her right knee. The one they had to replace.
My mother had to stay in a nursing home while they treated this problem. They were going to treat it in a few stages.
#1 around the clock anti-biotic treatments. They were using 2-3 different ones. This for some reason wasn't working.
#2 Would have been opening up her knee, removing the infection and keeping the knee open so they could flush it all the time.
#3 removing the artificial knee and replacing it.
#4 ultimately cutting off her leg.
My mother made mention that she would not want to die in a nursing center, or live her life too debilitated to take care of herself.
She also mentioned on numerous occassions how much pain she was in. She told me they gave her pain medication all the time and nothing helped her back or the pain in her knee from the infection.
The last part is a bit fuzzy, because alot of it is based upon how I believe my mother thought the day through, some of it is based upon fact.
The last week of February they finally got the infection somewhat under control. They told my mother that she could go home to her apartment and they would set up home health care to come by and do her antibiotic treatments each day.
February 28 was a Friday. She was supposed to go home March 1st.
My mother was told by the nurses that they couldn't get the home health care set up, and they couldn't let her go home until they did. My mother was livid. She had already made arrangements with a medical transport service to pick her up Saturday to move her belongings back home.
Saturday came, the transport service came to pick her up. My mother who could leave to take care of personal business at any time, decided she would just go ahead and have the guy run her home because she didn't want to stay at the hospital. She also had him run her by wal-greens to pick up some medications.
My mother was supposed to return to the nursing center at 4pm. On her way back to the nursing center was when they stopped by wal-greens. (The nursing center was only about 1 mile away from her place..almost a straight shot driving). While at Wal-greens the driver of the transport service was in an accident, police or emergencie services were NOT called.
This is where the story gets shaky.
For some reason he could not return my mother to the nursing center, however another driver picked them up and my mom returned to her apartment (video records show) around 3:40 pm.
The drivers both left the building around 4:01 pm. They had made arrangements with my mother and the service to have another driver pick her up at 6pm to take her back.
My mother phone her sister in Georgia at 4:45 pm. She told her sister and I'm paraphrasing here..."shhh...just listen don't ask any questions. I was involved in an accident and I want you to remember the name of this man, you'll find the name of the company he works for on a business card in my coat or pants pocket."
My aunt was a bit freaked by the conversation and tried to ask my mother questions but she just kept repeating herself, and stating how badly her knee was hurting again.
My mother then hung up. My aunt tried calling back but no answer. At 5pm a neighbor, the lady who had been watching my mother's dog on and off for the past year while she was in and out of the hospital heard a loud thump. She didn't think anything of it because she thought my mother had left for the hospital, she did not know she had returned.
My brother met and had a friend in the building who would look in on my mother daily came by around 7pm that night, the door was unlocked (as it often was) and he found my mother lying on the floor dead.
There are some in my family who still thinks it's murder.
But I don't believe that. I just think my mother came to the realization that after all she went through to heal her knee after this accident she wasn't going to get to go home and would have to stay in that nursing center, and would probably lose her leg, and eventually just waste away in there.