Hi Dear Friends & Family,

My Dad and I are very, very heartbroken to say that my Mom passed away last night (3/21) around 10:30pm.

On Wednesday (3/20) she was supposed to have a procedure to put some mesh in the big veins/arteries by her heart so that as they breakdown the blood clots in her leg they wouldn't go into her heart or lungs. But her breathing wasn't good enough for her to have the procedure that day.

On Thursday (3/21) they got her heart and breathing good enough to do the mesh procedure. During the procedure she coded and required CPR, intubation, as well as a ventilator to breath for her. The doctors wanted to check her neurological status after all of this so they took her off all sedation medications....she was slightly responsive but not much.

John, Sydney, Rhayne, and I were with her and my Dad by 6pm. The doctors removed the breathing tube and stopped all her meds except morphine. Her eyes were half open and she was looking up, like the saying of when the eyes rolls back in the head sort of thing for a good while. We feel this is when she was still with us. My Dad and I were on either side of her with our heads on her pillow each talking to her as close to her ears as possible while we stroked her head and face gently.

In a way we feel like she had a hand in this because she would have hated having to spend all that money on long term care for months. As much as we wanted to be there with her when she passed, it's very her to do it when we weren't there because she would want to spare us that....that's very Vicki.

After 1-1.5 hours of having the breathing tube removed her eyes closed and they stayed that way. My Dad and I believe this is when my Mom left us. From that time on it was just the body doing it's automatic functions of breathing and the heart pumping....but after she closed her eyes the pauses in between breaths was getting longer and longer.

As devastated and heartbroken as we are about my Mom passing away, we're also happy that she's finally free from all the hell she's been going through for over a year. No more struggling, no more pain, no more immobility, no more being in a body that is failing her, no more requiring assistance for literally everything. She's free from all of that and is mobile and independent as she ever was.