My mother (58) passed away unexpectedly while on vacation with me, and I (26 F) am having a very difficult time coping.

My mother (58) and I (26F) were on vacation in Cozumel, Mexico and on our third last day she had a massive hemorrhagic stroke.

It all started while we were in the breakfast buffet. This may be the strangest thing you've ever heard, but we saw an injured bird inside of the buffet - sort of hopping around the floor trying it's best to flap its wings. We felt really bad for it, so we told the hotel staff that it was in distress and needed immediate help, then continued to walk around the buffet.

Afterwards, all I remember is telling her I was going to grab some bacon from the hot table behind us, then I turned my back for a literal second and heard her scream at the top of her lungs. The bird had somehow gained enough height to land directly on her head.

She instantly had a very bad headache and immediately wanted to go to the hotel room to lay down. Thinking the bird dug its claws into her, I rushed her to our hotel room, closed all the blinds, and began icing her head / massaging her neck.

She then began to act strange, asking me to get the Tylenol bottle, but instead said "pass me the bottle with the purple tapioca". Then, when I asked her to explain what just happened at the buffet, she said she got "attacked by a fish". I instantly started to panic and knew something was wrong.

She ended up taking two Advil liquid gels (I couldn't find the Tylenol bottle) and said she felt way better and that there's nothing to worry about. I told her something still seems off and that we need to go to the hosptial as soon as possible to her get checked out. She became combative and started packing a beach bag - wanting to go down to the beach and snorkel instead. Finally, I FaceTimed my brother and father (my mom and him seperated 11 years ago, but remained great friends) and they were able to convince her to go.

When we got to the hospital, her condition started to decline quite rapidly. I saw her blood pressure spike and she suddenly started speaking gibberish. She looked terrified, her eyes were vibrating back and forth violently, then shortly after she had a seizure.

I was texting my dad the entire time this was happening and he immediately tried booking a flight down for himself and my twin brother. Unfortunately, due to the area that we were vacationing in, there were no direct flights for them until two and a half days later.

The time that I spent in the ICU alone with mom for those two and a half days was severely traumatic.

Although they were able to stabilize her BP / heart rate, they neurosurgeon told me that they needed to preform a craniotomy to clip the blood vessel that bursted. They also told me that they found another aneurysm on the CT scan, much smaller in size that did not burst, which also had to be removed. The neurosurgeon said, if we can keep her in this stable condition without complications - "let's wait 2-3 days for the swelling to go down in her brain, as that would be the best time to operate".

At this point in time, my mom seemed to have a slight idea of what was going on. I remember her saying, "I'm feeling a lot better" to me and one of the ICU doctors explaining to her what happened and what the next steps were going to be. I held her hand, we talked, I told her how much I loved her and that everything was going to be okay. Then shortly after, she had another high BP crisis.

This was also very scary to witness as she was fighting with the nurses and I to get up out of the hospital bed. She was also trying to tear her bp cuff off and IV. After they stabilized her blood pressure and she calmed down, I stepped out and began to sob in the waiting room.

The medical staff took her down stairs for another CT and informed me early that morning that another bleed had occurred during the night. They also told me that her BP dropped significantly, despite their best efforts to elevate it. The neurosurgeon informed the hosptial that surgery would need to be done asap, only thing is that the tools and clips needed for surgery were in Playa Del Carmen. They were also just used on another patient and needed time to be sterilized.

They ended up preforming the surgery, roughly a day and a half later. They removed part of her skull to elevate pressure. It took roughly 6 hours with no complications, other then her BP dropping significantly at one point.

While in recovery, the swelling in her brain became too much and started to effect her brain stem. At this point, time became a blur to me. My brother and father arrived a day before she passed. She ended up being intubated before they came and we had to make the decision a week and a half ago to take her off life support as there was little to no brain activity and her organs were actively shutting down.

This whole situation just feels surreal. I have a pre-existing health anxiety disorder, fear of hospitals, and have panic attacks usually weeks to months after triggering events. But I've been having them non-stop since and can't stop crying, even on a high dose of my anti-depressant and a lot of clonazepam.

I just miss my mom so much, we lived together, grocery shopped together, cooked together, walked the dogs together, even had sleepovers sometimes with our dogs in her bed. I just feel like my heart is shattered.

How did you all get through this?