Life is very hard after loss of my mum.

Hello, I just joined today as I am struggling to cope with the recent loss of my mother to bowel cancer. She was diagnosed in January, stage 4 and it had spread to her spine, and she passed away in June at home with me. I gave up my job to look after her last year when she was ill, we sought help for her loss of appetite and drastic weight loss but she was being treated for diabetes, high blood pressure, and health anxiety which they told us was the cause of these and her sudden IBS. By the time they discovered the mass in her bowel which was causing a blockage and making her very sick, she was too weak for chemo and the consultant said she had months. She received radiotherapy for the spinal tumour which was already affecting her mobility and continence. She was offered a few options to tackle the blockage, a stent and steroids were two, last case scenario was a stoma. Sadly within a week she was being sick again and the blockage had returned, her options were now limited to have the stoma operation ASAP or die within weeks with tubes everywhere. She chose the operation and it bought us all some time. She spent 2 and a half months in hospital and then I got to have her home with me with the help of an intermediate care team (physio, dietician, pharmacist) and carers coming in morning and evening. She was doing so well at home and was swapping between her walker and sticks, I managed to put almost a stone on her too by sneaking double cream in everything she ate (which wasn't much). She then developed a urinary infection a couple of months later and was back in hospital where she got pneumonia and sadly her mobility then became non existent, I was given options of a hospice, residential care at a local hospital, or bring her home with doubled up carers 4 times a day. It was a no brainer, she was coming home! But within days I struggled to get her to take her medication and our palliative care nurse strongly suggested the syringe driver. A few weeks later, she was gone, and now I am completely lost and heartbroken. I am an only child, I am trying to take care of my bereft father and her elderly labrador, while falling apart and taking to my room some days and not wanting to come out.

I'm sorry this is so long, it's just I'm hoping to find reassurance and people who can understand what I am going through as my best friend tries, but she has never lost a parent and says she can't begin to understand how that feels. I seem to have the guilt stage of the grief process in spades and cannot shake it at all, even though everyone tells me I have nothing to feel guilty for!