Honoring Sharon: A Son's Promise and Love

I promised my father, I would do whatever I could to honor and care for the woman he loved for 45 years. My story doesn't have a Hollywood ending, but it's the real life struggle of a dedicated son sacrificing and devoting his life, to give his dying mother the best remaining days he could.

My Mother passed away on 3/16/2025 at the age of 78. She had many medical aliments including Dementia, and Epilepsy that made her quality of life not what she was used too. The challenges began with her struggles with controlling her epilepsy. Looking back maybe it was dementia that caused some of it, forgetting to take meds that controlled her seizures. I brought her to UCLA Ronald Regan Hospital, considered to have one of the best neurology and epilepsy departments around, to get her seizures under control. After many visits and countless medication changes, we found a combination that was successful. She was pretty stable, walking with her cane, ubering around Simi Valley and Chatsworth and in general getting used to life as a widow and grandmother. During the fire season of 2019, our neighborhood was under mandatory evacuation and though I got mother safely out of our house and out of harms way, she fell in the driveway, hitting her head, causing a cluster of back to back seizures that led her to the ER that night and a bigger change for the future. We learned later as we navigated dementia that this type of fall and head trauma can be a kick off to the dementia symptoms that were likely laying in wait for their chance to come forward in fuller force than the occasional forgotten name/word. I didn't really understand what that meant and how our lives would be changing and how fast. If you ever had a loved one with dementia, OMG I feel and pray for you.

Her story began when she was born in Minneapolis Minnesota in 1946 to Herb and Viola Lund, then found the true love of her life in Ronald Rice. They got married in 1966, had 2 children, Daniel and Kelly. They moved to Omaha in 1984 and this is where there kids grew up with the strong middle class midwestern values you always hear about. It was a great life with home movies, campouts, fishing and lots of love and smiles.

In the last 7 years we created a routine for her. She'd wake up at 8am, get help in the bathroom, take pills and eat a banana while drinking a chocolate protein shake for extra calories, since she got frailer as time got as time and the illness progressed. About an hour later she'd have her breakfast, and around 11am it was nap time until 3pm. I'd usually get home around 5pm and I'd walk in the door and mom was always so excited to see me. I would set my stuff down and give her a kiss and ask her what she eaten that day, she'd struggle to remember or say it was a lot so I wouldn't worry. Then we'd watch the local news, then ABC Nightly news with David Muir, followed by Jeopardy and Family Feud. Then it was time for night night. To remind us of the 15 pills she took daily, split between an 8am dose and an 8pm dose, the living room Alexa would alert us "Mom, its time to take your pills, go to the bathroom and time for bed" or quoting a Will Ferrel Line from Wedding Crashers, "Ma the meatloaf F..." so she know it was med time and we'd all smile. None of this broke her spirit, she patiently took her pills, waited for us to walk her and eventually wheel her to the rest room, and didn't complain when she lost the abilities to clean herself in the restroom and even joked or gave us a wiggle when she could.

My mother was an avid sports fan, she loved her Nebraska Cornhuskers, she wouldn't miss a game and always wanted to listen to the radio post game, she loved sports talk. I think this is where I got my sports addiction. We took mother to the amazing Sofi Stadium to see a Rams vs Chargers game and a Vikings vs Chargers game and she was the belle of Thunder alley. I will never forget wheeling her through in her wheelchair and all the fans coming up to her and offering her drinks. Mom loved the holidays and goofy hats, earrings. She loved to keep her hair short and changing the color. Actually when she passed her hair was as long as its ever been. She was always cold and needed blankets and or hoodies on to try and keep her warm. I will never forget being in the pool on a 106 degree day and her saying, I'm COLD. She loved music, her favorite song was Happy Together by the Turtles, she would always sing this song and shake her butt even if she was sitting.

Through the dementia mom's care fell into the hands of the family and sometimes the medical community but the later was was hit or miss in her journey. She fell in the bathroom and broke her Humorous bone which landed her in rehab, but the rehab facility missed the required epilepsy medication at the prescribed interval and after 5 years of controlled activity with no seizures, she had a bad one which we never got notified about. We learned about it when we visited almost 8 hours later and found her repeating God please help me over and over, something they ignored. We called 911 ourselves and rushed her to the hospital waiting another month to get her back to baseline, after catching COVID in the hospital on top of everything else. We got her home and though she was protected by a railed hospital bed, she somehow pulled herself up and took a step before falling and breaking her hip. She needed another hospital stay and with that one came home no longer walking, after spending a month in bed. She went from walking normally with a cane to using a walker to using a walker with assistance to a wheelchair within 2 years.

My Mother lost a lot with dementia as it settled in. She really couldn't stand without our help getting up, she couldn't get dressed on her own, she couldn't use the restroom alone anymore and at times we needed to feed her. She would try to tell me this is hard, but having lost a lot of her words and language, most times she kept it short shaking her head since she couldn't get it out all the way. I organized her pills on a bi-weekly basis and would administer them at 8am and 8pm. Towards the end mom questioned us when she was sundowning since it makes one suspicious sometimes of what is being given, and she would need to count her pills and be convinced they were the right dose before she would reluctantly allow us to pour them into her mouth. She would then drink from her favorite green water cup with straw and then we'd give her come CBD oil to help her sleep, telling her it was her "squirt squirt."

Of course I cannot tell all the happy and frustrating moments in this post-dementia is a lot-but suffice to say myself and my family all sacrificed to make her as comfortable and as part of the world as we could. The week before her passing, she was actually removed from palliative care as she was stable and they told us she was the healthiest hospice patient they had so we were switching back to home health care.

Her last days, started with a toothache. She told us her tooth hurt and that is was hard to eat. Already eating like a bird, we took her to the dentist right away so we could eliminate any issues. We were told they would need to extract 2 infected teeth. They could not extract them that day and wanted her to go to a specialist and to try to fight the infection while we waited for an appointment. She was given an oral antibiotic and we knew it wouldn't work as she was antibiotic resistant after years of antibiotics for UTIs, a common issue for the elderly, especially with dementia. After a day, she began to have a really upset stomach, she didn't want to eat and wanted to sleep all day and night, she began to look like a shell of the woman who raised me. I fought with hospice to get the antibiotic shots we needed and after she had her 1st shot, she spoke the last coherent words I would ever hear my mother speak. She told me she loved me so much and told her grand daughter how beautiful she is and that she loved her. Then she went to sleep. The next day she barely woke up. She couldn't get out of bed, even with our help, she was limp and grunting. The nurse came over and she was found to have a blood oxygen of 72%, dangerously low. We gave her oxygen and that worked for a day, but then her blood pressure dropped to levels that forced her to the ER for the first time in 3 years. We got to Dignity Health Hospital in Northridge California and they immediately intubated her for fear of her being unable to breathe. They hooked her up to an IV, gave her antibiotics, sedatives and restrained her so she wouldn't pull out any tubing if she woke up. She was in the Critical Care Unit, room 2407. On 3/16/25, they said she was breathing on her own and were gonna remove the breathing tube. There was hope she would make it, but that was so short lived. About an hour after removing her breathing tube, Mom was making what I believe were death rattle breathing sounds. We all rushed to her side, but were outside the room as a flurry of doctors and nurses ran in to do what they could. We stood together outside her room crying and hugging and praying as I told her to not give up mom, fight for us, the doctors tried several times to revive her with no luck, my mother Sharon was now gone forever. I cried my ass off as I stood over her, held her cold hand and kissed her hand and head over and over. This is truly the hardest emotional moment of my life.

This woman had my back every time and loved me and her family so much, she'd give her shirt off her back to help her family and others. She was a woman of GOD and I know my father Ronald was waiting for her at the gates to welcome her to heaven. She was the best and always will be the best. A true mother who loved with everything she had. She will be so missed by all who had the pleasure to spend anytime in her presence. All I can hope now is that I do her proud and keep her memory alive.

Please do what you can to help a very loving and struggling family. We would always be forever grateful and my mother deserves the best ending to her beautiful, but so challenging life.

I love and miss you so much mother, please look down on your family and provide us signals of your presence.