Thanks sis. I love you too, beyond words in fact.
Well I know its been ages but for those of you who didn't know I recently had a family tradegy. My mother and aunt both had major heart attacks on the same day almost four weeks ago - and it killed them both. Incredibly my mother was revived against all odds and underwent a triple coronary arterial bypass graft (triple bypass) three weeks later and today was released from hospital. My mum was lucky. Despite the fact her heart stopped for 4 minutes, despite pneumonia, fluid building on her lungs, and the fact that part of her right lung had collapsed she lived. Her younger sister did not.
My aunt Lola lived in the country same as my mother, there was two years age difference between them, and for no reason at all both sisters suffered major heart attacks on the very same day barely two hours apart... they were both rushed to hospital where they were revived and later transfered to seperate hospitals in Sydney. Unfortunately though aunt Lola had been revived the oxygen did not get to her brain in time and she was later declared braindead. She was kept on life support for four agonizing days while her children deliberated waiting for signs of hope. My brother and I flew out to be with mum and two days after their heart attack we visited aunt Lola in ICU and it was the most heartwrenching thing to see a woman I once knew to be so strong and defiant twitching and jumping and restrained to a bed with her eyes open knowing she was already gone.
There was barely four minutes difference between her state and what happened to my mum. Two days later she passed away.
My mum woke up without any short term memory of what happened to her - and despite the fact I remined by her side night and day for near 4 weeks it was hard to sit by her through the rollercoaster of her recovery from her heart attack, having in many respects to become her mother and repeat answers to her questions, keep her calm, help her eat and drink and all the while being mindful that she could have another heart attack at any time and that this one would without doubt kill her as it should have already.
Her doctors were literally stunned. They took us aside the day after she was admitted and still unconscious and told us he didn't know why she was still alive. Her father, my pop Frank, had died of a massive heart attack when I was a small kid at almost the exact same age as my mother now is. It shook us all up.
Despite this, and after my aunt had passed away and her body was transported back to NSW to be buried, I didn't leave my mum's side. It was hard but as scared as I was that I was gonna lose her at any time again I was also determined that regardless what happened, whether she lived or died, she would not go through any of it alone. So I stayed.
The rest of my family for various reasons eventually went back to their homes and got on with life. I couldn't. Mum was faced with a life-threatening surgery and had been abandonned by her husband (my step dad) who went home and left both my mum and me (me without even a roof over my head and in a strange city thousands of kilometres from my home) because he needed in his words ' a break.' Pnuemonia kept delaying her surgery. The doctors were faced with having to operate on her despite her frail lungs for fear her heart wouldn't cope much longer with the stress. Luckily my aunt Jan on my estranged biological "father"'s side flew down last Tuesday to be with me while mum underwent her triple bypass.
Those 5 and a half hours were the longest in my life.
This morning my mum was released from St George Public Hospital and I am home in QLD again. Without the support of my aunt Jan and my best friends Chrissy and Mel back here at home I would not have endured, I'm sure of it. Mum's up and walking around, again defying the odds, a week and a half after her younger sister lays in the cemetary next to their father my Pop Frank, despite her ongoing pneumonia, despite her broken sternum (recieved during her lifesaving CPR nearly a month ago) and despite half a collapsed lung. These last four weeks have been long and trying and indescribably hard and lonely but through it I still have my mum. For that I am grateful. Regardless the cost on me financially, emotionally, mentally and otherwise I would do it all again. I have missed this place and my close friends here who know who they are, but really I had no choice. I may not be online again for a while after this as I have many debts to pay now in my absence but I couldn't go on not letting those of you who cared to know what had kept me away from what had been my second home.
Missed you guys. Love to all. Merry Christmas and have a happy new year too. I will because I still have my mum. When all is said and done it doesn't compare to anything else that I could ask for.
<3 to all.
Hopefully will talk again soon.
And to my sis I love you. Your messages and thoughts you sent everyday gave me more strength than you know. Thanks will never be enough. Hopefully we can catch up again soon. I have missed you immeasurably. To Sarah also thanks for the calls and ensuring despite everything going on in the world you were doing your part to keep me sane. Bless ya.
My mum and I three days before surgery;
http://www.offtopic.forum/data/MetaMirrorCache/e010ec3b1d5ca200bb6a9ce209750fbe.jpg
~Rav