I read the whole thing.
My personal reaction is not positive.
I wonder who your audience is supposed to be. I can see that you went through a difficult time. I have lost several close family members including both parents and two siblings. I curiously could not feel empathy for your situation.
Examining why I had that lack of empathy, I found that I felt a little contempt for the writer. This I think is not the intent of the writing. So far as the writing goes, it misses the mark of the intended goal.
I think that this demonstrates a less mature approach to writing. Although the whole scenario could be told as if you are telling a trusted listener, so that they might understand the flaw of your thinking. It comes across as a cold somewhat detached retelling of a bleak or maybe worse relationship. There is no closure for the reader.
The capsule titled 'Bad habits are hard to break' begins out changing tense. It sounds as if you are talking about present moment. Then the reader discovers that it is from the past. This is not something a reader likes to negotiate in reading. I found myself thinking "well what she meant here was." This is not good.
Some of the facts seem unlikely, for example, if people having seizures bit off half of their tongue, there would be a lot of people with half a tongue. In working in the schools for the last 40 years, I have worked with many students who have had seizures and not one of them bit their tongues off. So even if it did happen, it leaves great doubt in the reader's mind. That doubt then spreads to other points in the article and then the important events lose credence.
You change verb tenses at various times and this should be rooted out and changed. The verb tenses are very important in setting the stage and atmosphere of the piece. The hub is written in past tense and you make too many changes to present tense. It just makes no sense. In the capsule 'Just reflexes?' you change the tense to present: "At this time, mom is in her own room at the hospital. There is always someone there with her. The hospital is teaching us how to care for her once we get her home." This can't be right. It should be something like: "At that time, mom was in her own room at the hospital. There was always someone there with her. The hospital was teaching us how to care for her once we got her home." Although an argument can be made that the hospital is not capable of teaching, it must have been someone on the staff.
Then you say, "The doctors say she doesn't have circulation in her feet and there may be blood clots there but there is still nothing they can do.Later I found out this was caused by the medication called Warfarin that was prescribed to her for irregular heartbeat." Look at this paragraph and tell me what is wrong with it. Do you see that the sentence structure is goofed up? A later reflection cannot be happening because we are in the present. So the present has to be changed to the past and then the later discovery works.
Again, you say something that is not too believable. Yes it is possible but not likely, "The nurse stood in the doorway and said "she has the color of death". This is not a typical nurse comment, especially while standing in the doorway. True or not, it does not have the ring of truth. It makes all else that is told suspect.
Normally a bladder holds about 1/2 quart. This is about 16 ounces. This is two 8 ounce glasses. A distended bladder completely full would hold no more than one quart. Now you tell me how many towels it would take to clean up one quart of liquid. Two, maybe three. But does it take every towel in the house? Not likely. This indicates that some of the facts follow the pattern of lacking the ring of truth. For a reader who is interested in the facts, this is a big red flag.
Your content has potential. Your weakest writing skill is in verb tenses. You cannot simply switch back and forth. It makes for a very difficult read. You need to study this issue and practice writing in proper tense.
Secondly, you need to watch the facts. Most people will skim over them, but I am a reader that tests the voracity of all he reads. If something does not ring true to me, then I question all of the other assertions, and facts.
You voice is also problematic. The telling of a story or a recounting of an incident or relationship works best for me as a telling of the heart, and not a description of all the awful things that happened. These things have their place but just inserting them is crass. For example, the gushing bladder episode has nothing to do with your story. Remember, your story is really about you. What is happening to you, the message you want to give is that you learned your lesson too late, and you want to impart some wisdom to the reader. You are trying to get the reader to make changes now before it is too late. The episodes and events that contribute to that message are those things that happened to you, inside, and how you came to see the world differently.
I have done my very best to give you honest feedback. I held nothing back. In my opinion, you have potential, but you are going to have to work on it.
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