I am so very sorry for your loss. I think you have done a pretty good job in describing what killed your mother. I cannot address those final minutes when she had seisures and coded, but I know once you go into renal failure your whole body just starts to shut down and not much can be done.
It sounds like your mother had a decompensated liver for at least 6 years. Maybe more. Stopping drinking is not enough to stop the progress of cirrhosis once the liver has become permanently damaged. I cannot imagine "drinking until her eyes turned yellow"and then stopping but only until they got better, but I know of other alcoholics who have done the same thing. Cirrhosis is such a silent killer. The warning signs - the yellow eyes and the ascites - only come when the damage is severe. Sounds like your mom played the "out of sight, out of mind" game on herself.
It sounds like you did everything you could and you were there until the end and that she was very very loved. I don't know what more to say except I hope you find peace.
frijojle
I'm not a doctor, so I can't answer specifically what caused your mom to have a seizure and code. The doctors are right when they told you that she was very sick. It sounds like the alcohol had been gradually damaging her liver over many years, her liver started to not work correctly about 6 years ago (decompensated Cirrhosis). Once the liver is not able to work correctly, it isn't able to filter out all of the toxins in our body (various foods, various medications). When that occurs those toxins build up and enter the brain (Hepatic Encephalopathy). When the liver isn't able to work correctly, the body isn't able to get the proper nutrition and balance of nutrients that it needs, which leads to extreme fatigue and weakness. Also, when the liver isn't able to work correctly, there can be a build of of pressure in the main portal vein in the liver (portal hypertension) which can cause internal bleeding (sometimes in the esophagus, sometimes in the digestive system), which can be life threatening because people can bleed to death. Portal hypertension also causes the build up of fluid (ascites and edema) which affects mobility, breathing, etc. None of us can tell you exactly what caused her to have a seizure and code. It may have been related to the Hepatic Encephalopathy, it may have been related to an electrolyte imbalance due to the fluid build up, the seizure may not have caused her to code, but internal bleeding may have caused her to code. Essentially, your mom was very sick. Her liver had been not working correctly for about 6 years, and by last July it sounds like her liver began to fail. Transplant centers have very strict criteria and will not list a patient for transplant if they are drinking alcohol, and I know the Transplant center in the city where I live requires people to be sober for at least 6 months, so I don't know if they couldn't list her for a transplant sooner because of her drinking, or if it was just too late for a transplant. At the point where your mom was in her liver disease, after last July, the only thing that could have saved her life was a liver transplant. But it does take a long time to meet all the criteria, get listed, move to the top of the list, and wait for a liver to become available, because there aren't enough donor livers available for everyone who needs them.
I am very sorry for your loss. I know you want answers. Only a doctor would be able to specifically say what caused the seizure and what caused the code, but my guess is that her liver failed, couldn't do it's necessary functions, and she had a catastrophic event because the liver couldn't do it's job any longer.
The period of time from when the liver decompensates, stops working well, and death, is called End Stage Liver Disease (or ESLD), and a life threatening event can take place (ascites or edema can build up to the point that people have severe infections or can't move and the heart becomes too stressed; variceal bleeds can occur causing the patient to lose too much blood; hepatic encephalopathy occurs and can cause seizure, coma, and death). At the point where your mom was in her illness, her medications were helping to prevent these things from happening sooner, but medications cannot reverse the liver damage at this stage. Usually the goal in treatment at that point is to treat and manage the symptoms to keep the patient alive and well enough to undergo a transplant. However, if the patient doesn't meet the criteria for a transplant, they must first work to meet the criteria before they can be listed. There are many, many factors here and many that are unknown to us here on the forum. I hope you can accept the simple answer, which is that your mom's liver failed, and that caused her death.
Advocate1955
I am so very very sorry for your loss. You did a really good job explaining everything that happened. The two people above have done an excellent job of explaining.
They are right, once the liver fails then the heart fails. You mentioned that the doctor said something about an upper GI bleed, when the var ices (veins in throat/esophagus) burst it can be very sudden and it can cause death.
A member on here had it happen and she was lucky enough to get emergency care to save her life, not everyone is so lucky.
I am so sorry for your loss. You were such a good child to sleep next to her in the hospital. You did everything you could
Take care