Thanks again for your words of support and encouragement. I just can't seem to get my mind off of her.
Although I knew what the outcome was going to be; I had researched it and thought that I was prepared, in all honesty I wasn't prepared for how quickly she passed.
In the week before her death, I had traveled out of state to be with her and offered her words of encouragement. She had just finished her last radiation treatment and went into a rehab facility. Everyone told us after she finished radiation, she would bounce back and get stronger. In hindsight all of the near death signs were there, but we didn't recognize them, we attributed it to the radiation treatments and her weak condition. If the health care professionals knew, they didn't tell us how close to death she was.
I wonder if she knew that the end was near and whether she was prepared. One day she would say that she wished she had died during the surgery and the next day she would say that she wasn't giving up. In a way, I wish that we could have openly discussed her passing because there was so much more I would have liked to have said to her. When it was time for me to travel home and it was my last visit with her, I said goodbye to her, I didn't think it would be so much a goodbye, but rather I will see you soon. She told me she would miss me and I was crying too hard to respond, I wish I had told her that I was going to miss her too, but I didn't want her to know that I was crying (she had lost her vision) and I was trying to hold it together, although I'm sure she could hear it in my voice.
I wish I had the benefit of knowing that she was ok with the thought of passing, but my impression is that she was still fighting to live. She was just over a week after having finished her radiation when she passed away. The surgery and radiation treatments were all for naught. I wonder how much time she would have had without surgery, with fewer radiation treatments. My greatest hope was that she would have some quality time for the last few weeks/months that she was with us but that was not to be. I have so many questions and so few answers, it's so frustrating.