My mother recently passed away. Her autopsy indicated that she had aortic stenosis. We also know she had a leaking valve and the pathologist saw this as well. My sister was in the house when she passed away and did not find her until the morning. There was a noise in the house around midnight when she must have collapsed but as her light was off we did not go in. Around 10 minutes after the noise there were no sounds in the room as we walked past and thought she was asleep.

Can someone please tell me whether she would have passed quickly. How long after she collapsed would she have been conscious for very long. Her position the next morning was that she was lying on the floor holding her ribs (lower area), her eyes were open wide and she was looking upwards. Her mouth was wide open as if gasping for air. She had dark gums and finger nails when found the next day which I understand is due to a lack of oxygen. We just want to know whether it would have been quick. She was 83 and we loved her dearly. She had slight pains in her arm the night before as we saw her rubbing it but she denied it.

This question may seem morbid and we apologise for that however we feel awful that we could have possibly helped her.

Very quckly, she may well have gotten just feeling ill and then was gone before she hit the floor.

Even the lack of O2 is the more painless way if it took a minute or two.

No, I doubt there could have been anything that would have helped

I don't know the medical particulars, however I want to offer this, if I may...

Dying has a kind of built-in mechanism where shock can buffer many of the things that make for suffering so people don't feel them. I have been close enough to death to actually feel that numbness. How she looked may have been unnerving but reading into it more than what is there can be really hazadous to your emotional well being. I am certain she would not want that for you either.

My mom died of a terrible illness and for the longest time I could not "process" her images at the end without experiencing great pain. Best to think of her when she was really alive and leave those more gruesome images for later, I thought, when I am not so griefstricken. By the time I had the courage to pull them out from my memory storage, I had discovered they had faded considerably. Sometimes willful denial can serve a good purpose and my mom would be the first to agree with me. LOL

I am sorry for your loss.

I am so sorry for your loss.

I am new here and I've spotted this because you posted it four years to the day after I lost my own mother very suddenly. She had heart attack and I too had many questions at the time as to whether she was in pain and how long it took. Four years on, I now have an inner peace and I feel as though she was not alone even though physically she was. The reason I feel this way is because I have lost my father and I was honoured to be with him as he left this world. I felt a peaceful aura around me as he passed away and for some reason I said to him "Gramps and your dad are here for you, you can go now". He then slipped away. I must also point out that I do not have a religion and so this feeling was a total shock to me when it happened.

I feel confident that my dad was there with my mum holding her hand as she also slipped away. If I was to keep holding on to the doubts then I would never be able to get over her death and where would that get me?

You and I will never really know the truth so we have to accept as best we can what happened. That said, I too, looked up how my mother died and all it did was made me feel guilty which is one of those processes of grief. Maybe this is something you need to do but be careful of misleading information.

Have a good cry when you need it, have a good shout when you need it; don't feel guilty about feeling guilty. It's quite normal to feel even more hurt, pain frustration, anger,sorrow after a few months when you start to miss your mother even more but this is OK and will pass.

I feel your pain because I've been there and I know how strongly you must feel. I also know that old phrase of time being a healer and I hate that term but it is true. I still cry and I still miss my mum however I do not need to know the ins and outs of her death anymore.

All the very best to you.