What Happened to Mama Roxy?

I've received a lot of questions about what happened to Mama, and I ask myself the same question over and over again, and why I didn't see the signs earlier.


Mama has had a condition called pulmonary fibrosis, which she started showing symptoms of back in late 2006/early 2007. The symptoms started with a deep, uncontrollable cough, which would wrack her body and leave her weak at times. By the time the symptoms started I think she had had pulmonary fibrosis for some time. It is basically scarring of the lungs, which is caused by an unknown source. Check out the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation web site for more information.


There were a few potential sources for this disease in Mama Roxy, but at the end of the day it's unknown what the true cause was. One possible source that Mama Roxy thought might be the cause was the 2005 train wreck that Mama Roxy was in. She was in a car where the train doors actually flew open while the passengers were holding on for dear life. She was in the exit vestibule when the train doors opened, and a ton of dust, rocks and debris flew in which she and other passengers inhaled, as the train left the tracks.


We'll never really know what the cause was, or what ultimately took Mama Roxy's life, but the pulmonary fibrosis was compounded by another serious illness. When we went into the doctor's office on Monday, it was for a checkup with two of her doctors, and a that time she decided she wanted to get admitted to the hospital and get some of her health issues, such as eating, circulation, and stomach problems, addressed. By Wednesday her doctors were actually talking about sending her home on Thursday because she had responded so well to treatment of those issues.


But Wednesday night she started having problems. She wasn't able to eat anything at all, had a lot of side, back and chest pain (I found out after she passed), and started coughing. I thought the coughing was a positive sign because in recent weeks she didn't have the energy to cough. Little did I know.


By Thursday morning when I woke up with her, she was having breathing problems. I turned up her air so that she could feel a little more at ease, and notified the nurses that pulmonary needed to come and give her breathing treatments right away. Mama Roxy shooed me away to work because she didn't want me to worry and 'hover' as I tended to do.


I went home for about 2 hours, and as I was packing to leave for work one of the doctors (bless their heart) called me and told me to come back right away because she was in resperatory distress. I flew out of the house and back to the hospital to find a large group of doctors standing around her, having just given her significant treatments to ease her breathing, and I immediately became overcome and burst into tears. After getting it together I went back into the room to hold Mama's hand, and we talked about next steps of getting her to the ICU and giving her a pressurized oxygen treatment called a C-Pap.


She at first didn't want to go, and said she felt 'fine' after the treatments she had, but her breathing was very labored. I also found out at that time that she had bacterial pneumonia. She wanted to go home, but the doctors and myself convinced her to try the C-Pap to help improve her condition.


When they moved her to the ICU I didn't expect what happened next at all. When I saw her again next she was uncommunicative - the C-Pap apparently did not help at all - my perception is that it hurt, as it made her use her whole body to inhale and exhale, which exhausted her to the point of unconsciousness.


We took her off the C-Pap after a few hours, then put her back on a straight oxygen mask. At that point she woke up but was very agitated and distressed so we upped her sedation. She woke up twice more after that - once when one of her dear friends - Pat - came in the room, and once more after everyone except family had left. After that she was unconscious until she passed away.


Most likely a combination of the Pulmonary Fibrosis and the pneumonia killed her, but we will never know which for sure, nor will we ever know what caused the Pulmonary Fibrosis in the first place.

We tried everything, but her condition deterioriated from the time she was diagnosed in February. Pulmonary Fibrosis is usually a fatal condition unless caught and treated early or a person undergoes a lung transplant. Mama Roxy did not want that at all.

That is what happened to Mama Roxy.

God bless.