I want to apologize to all our readers for the lack of posts but I have spent the last 8 months caring for my mom who passed away last Sunday from complications related to diabetes.
My mom’s diabetes ended up killing her kidneys and at the end of 2009, she started dialysis treatments. My poor mom had to get dialysis three times per week for 4 hours each session. I still remember the first time I took my mom to the dialysis center. She was so scared. She put on a brave face so my brother and I wouldn’t worry but watching her getting plugged to a machine and seeing her blood coming out one way and in the other was terrible.
My mom was never a candidate for a kidney transplant because of her diabetes and because she had a faulty valve in her heart. The day she was told that, she was devastated but she never lost hope. She would go online looking for alternative cures: stem cells, acupuncture, homeopathic remedies and even contemplated going back to Colombia to buy a kidney and getting a transplant but her depression prevented her from going to Colombia. She had many trips to the emergency room. Most of them because she had too much fluid in her lungs. The last time she went to the hospital was at the end of May 2011. She started bleeding inside her stomach and her hemoglobin dropped. She was at Baptist Hospital’s ICU in Miami for a little over month. During which she suffered two small strokes and then her toes started getting purple. My entire family told the staff at the Icu that her toes were getting black and our concerns were not addressed and we were given a bunch of stupid excuses. At the end, her toes died and they ended up having to amputate her toes. She really never recovered from that and she states going downhill from there. She was transferred to a long term care hospital called Select Specialty Hospital where she continued to decline. After a small stay at Ponce Plaza nursing home, she was sent to the university of Miami hospital emergency room where she ended up dying.
