[Steve Dallas]

My mom is in her upper 70's, and started doing dialysis about a year ago because of her kidneys failing.

She's been in & out of the hospital now for the last month, with various infections and other issues.

I had planned on taking her to dialysis last Saturday, but got a call from my step dad that she was throwing up on Friday night, and that he would be staying around to do dialysis the next day. So I called on Sunday because she was very tired on Saturday, and let her know I would come up to visit her Monday.

So, I drove up there after work yesterday to visit, and she was not remembering a lot of things, including her two sisters visiting a week earlier while she had been in the hospital. And, she is now back in the hospital today and really has no memory of anything more than 30 minutes ago.

I know many others have dealt with situations like this, but for me it's a first...and I'm having a difficult time with it. I hope she will get some of her cognitive powers back, but there's no way to know...and I worry that I've really had my last real conversation with her.