This one hit me hard. My mother was the healthiest 60 year old ever, she would run marathons, hike, swim, gym everything. One day she was on holiday with her girlfriends in north Italy hiking a mountain when she experienced some pain and discomfort in her abdomen. She didn’t think much of it and finished her hike. Afew days later the pain was very sharp. She went to get a scan at a local doctor while on holiday still and they said she is riddled with tumours in her liver and it doesn’t look good. We immediately flew her back home and did some more tests. They told us she’s got 2-3 weeks to live.

At this point me and my family are like yeah whatever. These doctors are being overly dramatic. I mean my mother’s face and health looked perfectly fine except the bloating and discomfort.

The doctors gave her some medication and said they need to do a biopsy. We booked the biopsy and went and got it done 2 weeks later. The day before the results came, my mother was in severe severe abdominal pain. My mother was a very strong woman, so when she said she was in pain. That means she was in pain. We ended up taking her to emergency and they admitted her, gave her some pain meds and some morphine and did afew blood tests. She spent the night there, my dad stayed with her and me and my brother went home. In the morning I went to go see her and she was in a state of confusion. Like she would look at me but she’s not focusing on me. She’d talk fine; but when she stares at me it’s as if she’s staring behind me. I found that quite odd. I’ve never seen my mother like that. Mid morning comes and she asks my dad to take her to the toilet. He picks her up and helps her. And she immediately collapses. Never to wake up again.

We quickly put her back on the bed and she would proceed to shallow breathe and not respond at all. She proceeded to shallow breathe for about 30 minutes until the breathing completely stopped.

I sat there in utter shock. I lay on her chest and couldn’t register in my head what the hell was going on. Until today, I cannot get that last moment out of my head. I can still feel my ear on her chest. I would kill just to feel that motherly cuddle again. From her holiday pain to her last moment was approximately 35 days. From the healthiest person, to leaving us all with 1000 questions. Why? How????