NowakowDA

Cat: Try e-bay. Look under computer-software by catagory "voice recognition", or by company "ScanSoft". Don

Joni: Get a plactic bucket and draw a face on it. Print the name of the person who has upset you the most on that bucket. Put some water in the said bucket. Put on a pair of heavy shoes. Run up to the bucket as fast as you can and hall off and kick it as hard as you can. Then, stand back and watch that suckr fly. I promise it will help Don PS: Do not attempt this inside. Do this outside. If you try this inside your house, it will make an awlful mess

I want to thank everyone who was kind enough to read my words and post a reply. As for help? I could never set down and talk to a stranger about what was inside of me. I will not even bother the few friends that I have about my problems. I have never been able to talk very well. My mind and my mouth seldom work together. For the past month I have been unable to post anything on this board. I could not summon up the strength to set down and type. I was still lurking in the background. Reading posts but not posting. Right now my life is at a stand still. I am neither going forward or backwards, just stuck. I'm still looking for a job (unemployed computer tech). Still living on my savings (can survive till next August on just my checking account). I had saved up enough money so that by this summer I could have put a down payment on a house (up to 50% on a 100K home). I knew that Mom was getting old, and that noone in her family ever lived past 85. I wanted her to spend her last years in her own home. A place where she could put a nail in the wall and hang up a picture if she wanted to. I guess that just wasn't ment to be. As for getting help? This board is the only help I can manage right now. This is the one place that has kept me from going over the edge. If not for this board, I know I would not have survived the last two months of Mom's life. Again, much thanks. Don

Last Thursday marked the two month anniversary of my mother's death. It has been just eight weeks since she left this earth. The memory of that terrible night has burned itself into my mind, and it will stay with me for the rest of my life. From the last of May till her death on July 29th, all I could feel was shock and panic. On May 22nd when they said Mom had an abnormality on her lung, I begged God to not let it be cancer, but it was. On June 20th, when they did an MRI of Mom's brain, I begged God to keep the cancer from spreading to her brain, but it did. When they started her WBR on June 31st, I begged God to give me as much time with her as possible. She died less then a month later. God saw fit to take from me the only thing in my life that mattered. The only one I cared for. Now, I can not remember my mother when she was not sick. When I think of her, all I see is the last two months of her life. Her journey from life and health to death was all to brutal and short. My mother was 79. Her birthday was June 27th. That day came and went with little notice, but her rapid decline continued. In the space of two months I could barely recognize the woman that had given birth to me. Her hair had fallen out and her mind was gone. I did more then look after her, I had to. I would not let strangers touch her. I gave her her medicine. I fed her when she was hungry. When she wet her pants, I dried her off and changed her. When all she wanted to do was set and watch the Weather Channel, I bought her a recliner. When she grew confused and disoriented, I put my stereo by her bed and played her favorite music. When she was scared of the dark, I kept the lights on. For the last month of her life, I slept on the floor in her room so that she would not be alone. There were no tears, no anger then about what was happening, all that would come later. My last memory of our time together was of me getting her dressed for her journey to the funeral home. The panic and shock I felt during those two months has now given way to pain. Now, within me there is this deep anguish. My soul has been cut open, but instead of blood coming out of this wound, there is only pain. The only time this pain subsides is when I realize that she is gone. Then it is drowned out by an overwhelming sadness. This is a sad time of the year. It's made all the sadder by Mom's death. The holidays are coming and I dread to see them arrive. Sometimes I wonder if I will be here to see the New Year. Sometimes I fear that I will not and other times I don't even care. Don

The Drs. told me that wbr effects people differently. My mom just got fatigued. All she wanted to do was sleep and eat. Was your mother taking a steroid while she was getting wbr? How many brain mets does she have? The combination of the brain mets with the wbr can produce some strange effects. Throw in a drug like Dexamethason and things can get worse. Don

I don't want to bother you with a trivial question but something has been eating at me since my mother died two months ago today. I have come to believe that as a result of actions or my inaction I contributed to my mother's death. My mother died on Thursday, July 29th of this year. Every since that event, I have been reliving her last night in my mind over and over again. I am my mother's only son and I was her sole care giver during her illness. She was diagnosed on June 3rd after an xray taken on May 22nd showed a mass in her right lung. It was inoperable. An MRI on June 20th revealed that she had two tumors in her brain. She had fifteen WBR treatments and was due to start radiation treatment on her lung on Friday July 30th. She was on 4mg of Dexamethason twice a day from June 20th till the end of her wbr treatment on July 20th. As her wbr treatments drew to a close, Mom started going down hill rapidly. She was very weak. She slept most of the time. Toward the end she could not get our of bed to go to the bathroom or even use the bedside commode. She suffered from confusion and a mild delirium (sundowning). She went on hospice care on Friday July 23rd. The last couple days of her life she was barely responsive and could not walk or even stand up. On Thursday they 29th, she would not eat or drink anything. She had a blank look on her face and could barely speak. She spent most of Thursday in bed, but early in the evening she wanted to set in her recliner. About 10:00 PM I was going to put her back in bed. When I started to lift her up she went limp and I almost dropped her. When I got her into her bed I noticed she was breathing rapidly but shallow. She seemed upset and a little agitated. When she got like this, it usually ment she had wet her lined paper under pants. I proceded to cut of the old paper garment and put a clean pair on her. When I turned her back over, I noticed her breathing had changed. She was now taking very short shallow breaths. I also heard a rattling noise in her chest. I raised the head of her bed so she could set up. The hospice nurse gave me two medications to give to her if her breathing got bad. The first was a small pill called Lorazapan (not sure about the spelling). The second was a liquid form of morphine. I was to try the Lorazapan first and if that did not work then I was to give her the morphine. She was clenching her jaw so tightly that I could not get it open to place the pill under her tongue. I was able to get the liquid morphine in her mouth. While I was waiting for her breathing to slow I called the hospice emergency nurse. While I was talking to the nurse I noticed that Mom's breathing had slowed but a change came over her. She looked like a fish out of water gasping for air. After a few minutes she got what I thought was a look of anger on her face and shortly after her breathing became very shallow and stopped. I could find no pulse either in her wrist or neck, then the was gone I waited for over an hour for the hospice nurse to arrive and pronounce Mom dead. While waiting, I got Mon dressed. The nurse said that from the description I gave her it sounded like Mom had a massive pulmonary embolism. What I thought was a look of anger, the nurse said was probably pain. From the time I first noticed a problem until Mom died was no more then 20 to 30 minutes. Since that night I have come to believe that my actions or my inaction caused the attack that took my mother's life. I am convinced that it started when I picked her up and put her in her hospital bed. If I had not tried to move her that night, she would not have slipped from my grasp. Instead of catching her, I should have let her slid down to the floor and put a pillow behind her. If I had done this she would not have had to under go the stress of being picked up and put into her bed. Had I called 911 instead of hospice when I noticed the her breathing was getting worse, she might not have died that night. When I brought this up with Mom's PCP (primary care provider) he said that if it was an embolism, then it didn't matter if she were at home or in the emergency room. If the embolism was massive enough, then it was going to kill her. As for moving her. He said that all I did was make her last few minutes more comfortable. He told me that it was her time to die, and there was nothing I could have done to stop that. Mom's regular hospice nurse told me that I should take some comfort in the fact that Mom died at home where she felt safe and comfortable. She said that this was better then dying alone in a hospital hooked up to a machine. Despite what I have been told. I am still convinced that I hastened the on set of my mother's death, and that is a terrible thing to realize.

What about a severe lung infection? Back in 1987 my mother had a bad infection centered in her upper bronchial area. The infection spread and put my mother in the hospital for a week. Her blood oxygen level droped to 35. She was on 15ltr of O2 until the infection broke. In addition she took Synthroid for more the fifteen years. In June of this year she was Dx with squamous cell cancer. It was centered near on of her major air passages. Don

Mom was on 4mg of Dexamethason twice a day for a month. She had two brain mets. The location and size of the mets are real important. Mom's were in the back of her brain. One was stable but the second one was still growing. When they started her wbr. Her Dr said it was important to treat the brain mets first. She had 14 wbr treatments. The bigest side effect she had was the fatigue. I feel that the steriod aggravated her condition. She got to the point where she slept most of the time. When she was awake she was barely conscious. She had a blank look on her face toward the end of the treatments. She was confused and disoriented. She could not feed herself. Her balance gave out about the time of the 12th wbr treatment. By the end she had lost control of both her bladder and bowels. There was a variety of opinions about what caused this. One Dr. thought it was the tumors in her brain. Another thought it was the combination if steriod and radiation. Her pcp (primary care provider) thought the tumor in the lung had reduced her lung capacity to such a level that her brain was starting to suffer from oxygen starvation. Don

I lost it today. I melted, cracked, lost a screw, blew a fuse, went crackers, broke down, broke up went sideways, what ever you want to call it. I did it, and I did it in a big way too. I got up before dawn today. I was going to go do some yard work. About seven it hit. I've been so busy trying to keep the voice from the dark side with its doubts and questions at bay that I forgot about the other voice. The voice of the little boy. Well! The little brat made itself noticed. I was so worried about making it through Thursday in one piece. It was one week ago, Thursday night that Mom died. Thursday came and went. Friday was quiet. Same with Saturday. Then Sunday morning and wham! The little brat really put on a show. I think I know what started it. Saturday, I finally got down to cleaning out Mom's closet. I sorted through her clothes, shoes and jewelry, trying to decide what to do with it all. The memories and smells that were in that closet did a job on me. I think everything hit at once. My worry about finding a job. Trying to take care of all the loose ends. Whether or not I should have a funeral. Should I send her remains back to Wisconsin for burial, and on and on and on. I've decided that there will be no funeral. Her friends can go get bent. I may have a memorial service for Mom, but not right now. Don Wood said that “a small memorial service at an appropriate place would suffice.” Hum? For Mom I think that might be the Sabarro's Restaurant at the Mall food court. She wanted to go there all the time. She loved their pizza and breadstciks. I'll have to ask them. As for my aunts, them too. I'm sending each one a letter telling them that I'm going to keep Mom's remains here with me for a while. I like that. It's comforting to know that some part of her is still here in this world. I'm going to put an obit in the paper this week. I'm going to prepare a small memorial booklet and send it out. If everyone dosen't like what I've decided to do, that's too “&^!@)_P{}+ <?>” bad. She was ”MY” mother. There is one thing I didn't tell the family or her friends. After she died I set there by her for an hour waiting for the hospise nurse. I was trying to decide what she should wear when they came to pickup the body. I got her dressed in the cloths she wore to the caner center. A pair of long black cotton shorts. A white loose fitting short sleeve cotton shirt. Her white lace up work shoes. A black ball cap and a pair of chrome wrap around sunglasses. I just wanted her to be comfortable for her journey. So I wondered what happened when she showed up at the PearlyGates dressed like that. Mom, I hope you could explain it to them up there. I figured out what's wrong around here now. It's too friggin quiet. There is no sound. No one talking, laughing crying or singing. No noise! I think I'm going to get two speakers and hitch up my old stereo and make some noise. I'm still worried about finding a job, but now moneys not tight. Last week I couldn't wait to get out of hear. My reason was that there are too many ghosts here. Now I'm not so sure. I think I might miss some of these ghosts. Before someone says that I should seek counseling, Posting here is my therapy. It's cheap. No appointments to keep. No therapist sitting there saying, “that's interesting, what do you think it means.” I know that I'm not handling this very well and that I've made mistakes. I'll probably make many more. This is a first for me, and I'm trying to learn. So please bear with me. Don

Looking back now, I can see how Mom entered the final phases on Thursday morning. I only I had known about this web site a week ago. It would have prepared me for what was happening. Don

Connie A. Frost Nowak beloved mother, lost her battle with cancer July 29th 2004 at about 10:30 PM. She died at her home in Albuquerque New Mexico Connie Adelia Frost was born June 27th 1925 in McKean County, Pennsylvania. She was one of five children born to Dennis Harold and Gladys Ethlyn Frost of Warren County, Pennsylvania. She was proceded in death by her older sister Betty who died in 1930 at the age of 11. Her older brother Leslie Raymond who died in 1995 at the age of 75. The twins David and Joyce died in June 2001 and December 2001 respectively. David was six months short of his 73rd birthday and Joyce just turned 73. She was united in marriage on May 27th 1948 at Ft.Lewis Washington. Connie's husband, Command Sargent Major Donald A. Nowak USA Ret died in May of 1990. She is survived by her son (that's me!), D. A. Nowakow of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Connie Nowak was a real estate brooker and owner of Connie's Realty in Albuquerque. she had worked for AAFES (Army & Air Force ExchangeService) off and on for thirty years. She counted among her pleasures meeting and talking to people, poetry and sleeping and especially "pizza" (Sorry for that one Mom).

Well. I did not intend to come back and post anything, but things have gone from bad to just plain wierd. I brought Mom's remains home today. Right now she's in a plastic bag inside small white cardboard box. In a period of just over 48 hours, I've managed to alienate part of my family and realy tick off a number of Mom's friends. All of this while I was trying to honor Mom's wishes. It all started last year when I asked Mom if she wanted a funeral. Her answer was short and too the point. No! She thought funerals were a waste of money, designed to make the living feel better about loosing a loved one. She said that if you love someone, show them you care when there their still alive. Not after their gone. With that in mind I anounced to friends and family, that there would be no funeral. Well, from the reaction I got. You would have thought I spit on the flag, choked a cute puppy, or told every child that Santa Claus was a lie. In some quarters, I'm slightly less popular then Osama and Sadam. At first, I thought about a funeral, but then I rembered what Mom had said. Instead of a funeral. I told everyone that I was going to make a small memorial booklet and send a copy to everyone. This booklet would have Mom's picture in it A favorite Bible verse and two of her poems (Mom was a published poet). I cannot discribe the looks I got from some people. Let me just say, that if looks could kill, I'd be dead and buried by now. Well, it gets deeper and uglier. My aunts are after me to have Mom's remains sent back to Wisconsin post haste, so that they can be buried next to their brother, her husband, my father. One aunt even told me she's got the priest all lined up and ready to go. I told them that I want to keep her ashes with me, at least for awhile. My cosain. Mary Jane said that she had her mother cremated and put the ashes in a fancy vase. She put the vase on a shelf in her living room. MJ said that when she's ready, she'll have her mother buried, but "not" till then. I liked that idea. Now, half of my family has disowned me and the other half think I'm stark raving mad. Only my cuz MJ is still speaking to me. My head hurts and my stomach is tied in knotts. Stupid family! As for Mom's friends. Lets just say that I would not want to be in a room with them right now. Well Mom! It looks like it's just you and me against them all. Don Now, offically an orphan and probably dead meat if certain people get their hands on me.

That's right! I'm hearing voices and they don't like you First of all I want to thank everyone who posted a reply to my message about my mother. I think I would have lost what little bit of my mind I had left if I hadn't found this place. Since Mom died, I have been trying to keep busy. If I can keep going or doing something, then I don't have time to think. During the day, that's no problem. There are a lot of things to get done. I'm waiting to get Mom's ashes and the death certificates from the funeral home. Mostly, I've been cleaning and packing. I'm also looking for a job. I have not worked since the first of the year. The trouble starts when it gets dark. At the end of the day when I finally quite and lay down, my mind starts to work and all the old questions come back. I can not banish the doubts from my mind. I will have to face them and admit I made some mistakes and that yes, in part I am responsable for my mothers death. In other words, I need to learn to live with my doubts and the mistakes I made. Right now that voice is being drowned out by another voice. This is the voice of the small boy that lives inside me. All this small boy wants is his mother. Maybe, with time I can still the voice of the little boy and learn to face my doubts. But both will always be there. This is going to be the last time I post anything here in this forum. For Now just let me say "so long, and thanks for all the fish". Don P.S. If you didn't get that last line, then Douglas Adams was wrong. The answer to life, the universe and evrything isn't 42, it's, well! It's a secret. TTFN (Ta-Ta for Now).

Well! It's been 48 hours since I watched my mother die. For the past two days I have been cleaning the entire house. I'm getting evrything packed up. I'm leaving this place. I've been renting this house for the past twelve years, Now, I can't stand to look at it. Monday, I'm going to bring in someone who does estate sales. When I'm finished, evrything I own will fit in the back of a small U-Haul. I'm going to rent an appartment. A small studio I think. Thursday, Mom was very restless. She did not want to stay in bed, so I got her to her recliner. She refused to drink any liquids all day Thursday. I did get her to eat some Jello, a cup of chocolate ice cream and half a vanilla milk shake. She even took one of her Tylenol 3 pills in some applesauce, but no liquids. All day Thursday, when I would ask her a question she would just stare at me with a blank look on her face. I had to ask and point. If I was wrong, she would just stare. If I got it right, she would nood her head. Thursday evening she wanted to go back to bed. When I picked her up, she was totaly limp and I nearly dropped her. When I got her into bed and raised the head she was already breathing very fast and very shallow. Usually,when she gets like this I can give her Albuteral in a nebulizer, but not tonight. She could not unclentch her teeth. They gave me two medicines to give to her when she got short of breath, Lorazpan and Morphinedrops. I could not get her mouth open enough to get the Lorazpan under her tongue, soI gave her 1/4 ml of Morphine in a eye droper. Then I sat there holding her hand and watched her. After a while her breathing slowed down, but then she started gasping for breath. She looked like a fish out of water the way she was breathing. Shortly after, she got what I thought was a look of anger on her face. The nurse said it was probably pain. The she quit breathing and her pupils dialated and she was gone. During the past two days, I've gone from shock to anger. I'm angry at the Rad Onc and his magic radiation machine. Between that and that damned steriod, he turned my mother's mind into Jello. He wanted to use WBR instead of a much more focused radiation. They never even got a chance to treat Mom's lung. Then there's that damned steriod. I'm mad at the case worker who pushed me to call hospice. I'm mad at the hospice people, who urged me to accept the inevitable. I should never have called them, and I should never have called the hospice nurse the night mother died. If I had called 911 when she had this attack they might have been able to stop it, or at least made her last few minutes more comfortable. The person the I'm most furious with is myself. I should have questioned the doctors more. I should have insisted on a less distructive treatment plan. I should have taken them all to task for insisting on this type of treatment. I shoulda, I shoulda, I shoulda. In the end, I failed. The result of my failure is the fact that my mother is dead! I will have to spend the rest of my life knowing that my actions, or my inaction contributed to my mothers death. I so wanted the last words I spoke to my mother to be "I love you", but they were not. Now she is gone. Don

My mother died tonight! She left this world about 11:00 PM. She has gone to be with her parents, her sisters and brothers, and especially her husband my father. I love you Mama. I will always love you. For now, that's all I can say. The pain is to strong. Don

Moms in a hospice program now. She has a hospital bed and a nurse comes twice a week to check in on her. Today she refused to drink any liquids. I got her to eat/drink some Jello, half of a vanilla milk shake and a cup of chocolate ice cream. She won't take her medicine, any of it. Right now she's not talking to me. I realy must of ticked her off. All she wants to do is sleep. She will wake up for a while, then it's back to sleep. She has a pain in her right lung. She tries not to cough. Tuesday, I took her back to the Cancer Center. Her Rad Onc was on vacation. This new doc (Dr. Andres) said he thinks the tumor is pinching off more of her air way. He wants to start a radiation treatment program next week. It has not been two weeks since they finished zaping her brain and now they want to start zaping her lung. He told her it would realy cause her some major fatigue but he said it should releive the presure on her airway and let the crap that's backed up there drain. Her energy level is somewhere below 0. I have to put her in lined paper pants cause she does not have the energy to get up and use the bedside commode I bought. I have to lift her in and out of the bed, wheelcahir and her recliner. Last week I paid a big price for doing this the "wrong" way. I hurt my back, big time. When I was lifting her I felt something go snap-crackle-pop in my lower back. I was in "bad" pain for several days. By Tuesday, the pain had eased enough so that I can function more or less normally. Friday of last week, I told Mom "I" needed the hospice program more then she did. The nurse showed my how to use a folded sheet to move Mom around on her bed. The PT showed me how to lift and lower Mom "the right" way. The new Rad Onc told her that just because she's in Hospice, that dosen't mean she won't get any treatment for her lung. Her PCP is pushing for just pain releif. He dosen't think she should get the Rad treatment. He thinks her brain is suffering from a lack of oxygen (funny, that never stopped me). When she is awake, she is barely conscious. Up to today her memory was fine, but now there are some holes. He (her PCP) thinks she will continue to sleep more and more. He said she might reach a point where she can not be roused and will enter into a comma like state. Mom said twice this week, that if I can get her to the Cancer Center, she wants the treatment. I have not even mentione the war I am having with her bowel and the "huge" "Mega" big probl;em I had with my computer. I ended up spreading more virus then Typhoid Mary, but that's another story. I've learned some new things. Now I know what Zinc Oxide cream is used for and that corn starch is better then baby powder for keeping the butt dry. Tomorrow, we'll see if they want to start the treatment on her or if they think it's not worth it. Don