Monday 28 November 2011

The day before Tomorrow

I will think of a better heading next time but this is indeed the day before the 29th November, five years tomorrow since i sat with mum as she died and a year tomorrow since they told me the cancer had returned.
It's always a odd time of year for me i remember the timeline clearly five years ago when mum phoned at work to say they had found shadows on her lungs on 13th November. I drove up on the Saturday with my two younger sons Adam at 10 and Zaki at 7 she lived in North Yorks me in London. When we arrived we walked in as usual she never locked the side door and i found her standing in the middle of the room, she greeted me as if i had only just returned from a trip down the road, no hello how was the journey or a discussion of the route as my dad would have done....'i can't find my teeth' she had lost them for a day, she looked frail but then she was 84 and had been diagnosed with breast cancer 5 years previously. I told the boys the first to find them would get a pound and they ran around looking for them to no avail, so i went to make a cup of tea, the washing up was still in the sink so i started to clear it during which i found the teeth! She giggled at the stupidity when i told her and we had the tea.
 She had elected to do nothing, when Dad was ill with cancer she  felt that the treatment he had made him worse and on that basis didn't want any for herself. She carried on as normal, her neighbours even querying whether she had cancer at all. She had a history of being Bi Polar, i was bought up with the term manic depression and she suffered with it badly especially in the 10 years since dad died as he wasn't there to monitor her. The CPN team however were brilliant and it enabled me to know that she was being looked after up there. She never wanted to move down to mine....'but it's so horrible where you live!'
On the Monday we went back to the docs, her CPN Vanessa came with us she told me in the last week mum hadn't been herself at all, on the Thursday mum had refused to go into hospital but with me there she took the advice and i said i would take her in later. I think she never liked to make these decisions herself as if she was capitulating showing weakness, but did not remonstrate when i said it was the best thing to do.
We went back home and she got her stuff together and we packed a small suitcase. She walked into the hospital and then remembered once in her room something she needed so i left the boys with her to go and get it. When i returned she said that they had been getting on well Adam was putting her things away for her and chatting away. It would be the last time he and Zaki would see her and i think she appreciated how well they got on.... she was never a cuddly grandma and would not make a particular effort with them but often would complain about their behaviour.
She was a strong woman about a year before she died i got a call from her, i was on a particularly rubbish hands free in the car and couldn't hear her properly, she said what she said and had to repeat twice by the third time i thought i cant keep getting her to do this so i said oh ok that's good and left it. When i arrived home she called and said when i told you that i fell through the glass door in the living room and cut my finger you didn't seem too perturbed....she had tripped gone through the  glass cut her finger called the neighbour and waited calmly for their arrival. She wasn't one for flustering and i think that's why i am the same, just take everything in our stride.
About a week later i was at a training session at work on the Monday when i got a call from the GP she told me that she needed to discuss non resuscitation with me as she didn't think mum was able to understand. She had obviously deteriorated quite quickly. I never went back into the training room, some good colleagues and friends went and got my stuff for me and i got in the car with another manager i had given a lift to, who was kind and helped me realise that i needed to get back to mum as soon as possible although Zaki's birthday was going to be on the 22nd Nov in a couple of days.
So the next day i drove back with Joe the oldest. Mum was with it when we arrived and commented on how tall Joe was he was 14 then and had a  growth spurt since we he last saw her 6 months previously. She did however have her funny moments due to the effects of morphine and was hallucinating on occasion. During this time i was able to take to her about hymns and readings, I went and got a bible from her home and flicked through it, it fell on John 14 we lived at no 14 and i live at no 14  now so it seemed apt, i was later to find that it is a very popular reading for funerals although i didn't know this at the time. She told me she wanted a hymn called lord forty years, her speech was becoming hard to discern at times and i got no more from her than that.
Another day she asked for a cuddle, she said' we never have a cuddle' i can't say that at any time in my life i would go her for one, my father was the more stable parent due to her mental health and we never had a very good mother daughter relationship. It was quite a moment and one i am glad that she made. I in turn told her later before she died that i would never have wanted another mother and that i loved her, for all her faults it was clear that i was loved and that is the  most important underlying thing.
This post has been hanging around for a bit....i am now at  the time just after the nurses called to say that they weren't sure if she would make the night so i went in and sat with her. She looked my way and somewhere in the sunken eyes and drawn face i believe she was still here, she seemed to be focusing on me. I slipped in and out of sleep through the night and unfortunately had a few coughing fits as i had a bad chest infection at the time.
At 7.30 the nurses said that they would like to change her before they went, i quickly went and had a shower before i had finished the nurse knocked on the door. They thought she was going, as it was they had sat her resting on pillows on her bed. There was music playing on the speaker that i had bought for my  i pod and music playing that i thought  she would enjoy in the background, Jim reeves and some classical pieces, calming music. On the bedside table was a montage photo frame that i had put together on bought in, pictures of Mum when she was young slim and pretty, she was reminiscent of the queen when younger, brunette, brown eyes with a bit of a twinkle in them.
 I had bought the pics in so that the nurses caring for her could see who they were looking after, no one is just the person in the bed at that time, in fact they are likely to be the furthest away from the essence of the person, i wanted them to be there for the vivacious woman of her youth as well as the woman moving towards the end of her life. I had bought lilies to create a scent in the room but they hadn't quite opened. I sat next to the bed on the left and held her hand. The nurse stayed and we chatted a while, then i noticed that mum's breathing had changed, the nurse was still chatting but i just stopped responding i was just fixed on mum, i watched as one by one her breaths became more spaced out until eventually they didn't come anymore. It was 8.45am the nurse confirmed that she had gone and left, as she did shoshtakovich piano concerto started to play a beautiful piece that will always remain the piece that i associate with her.
It isn't easy to watch someone who has been such an integral part of your life go, but my overwhelming feeling looking at this woman of 84 was my good ness from her birth on the 8th August 1922 to this moment has been huge, packed with so many experiences many of which would have floored many a person, but she struggled on....i would like at some point to write her life history it would be a best seller, the best stories are those that are written from truth. So here i was to be with her at the end of her life, to be with her the moment she breathed her last, a momentous occasion in a very ordinary day.
I can't say she looked at peace particularly the last two weeks had aged her by so many years, the lack of food quickly forming hollows in her cheeks, but she was at peace and she was with dad i hope.
I phoned my aunt and told her the news she was mum's sister in law uncle Joe her brother died 6 months previously.
Then what? i kissed mum goodbye the sister came down the corridor arms open wide for a hug, she remembered my dad dying in the same little cottage hospital ten years previously, i was barely holding onto my emotions as it was and to have her be too nice would tip me ove rthe edge. I told her just to talk to me normally and to talk about what to do. I looked in the wardrobe and there was the hat that she had worn only two weeks previously when she walked into the hospital slightly out of breath but managing, i am glad at the time that i had no idea that she would  never return home again.
What do you do then? i said i would keep the hat it sat with her ashes for a couple of years before i dispersed them and i still have it. The nurses disposed of her clothes for me, i then left and ended up in Tesco buying presents for the nurses. I remember wandering around thinking does no one see? isn't there something that says my mum died less than an hour ago......but of course no one would notice as long as i held it together  and of course i did, it is just another day except that it really isn't well for me. I took the gifts of tea coffee chocolate and biscuits etc to the hospital then made my way back to mums.
I popped next door to Jean ...jean is quite a character from newcastle and a medium she says. I said i had come from the hospital and she  asked how mum was i told her that she had died and she said 'i canna believe it, my goodness i didn't know she was that ill' my  immediate thought was that i would have thought she would have  spoken to mum by now!
Margaret on the other side was lovely an older lady of 86 with failing sight. She got on very well with Dad, i ended up sitting with her that afternoon quietly just talking i can't honestly think of a better way to have spent that afternoon under the circumstances.
I went back later, it was very odd to be in the house without anyone, to have had dad there and mum and the boys and when dad was ill his brothers and sister in law i was watching a dvd i made at the time of a busy house full of people and here i was on my own.
The following day i looked though the spare room on the bookcase was a folded piece of A4 paper with a poem called letter from heaven i had never heard of it before but if googled it is easily found. There was also  a hymn lord for the years!! at last the hymn for the funeral i also used dear lord and father of mankind which i love and the words were very apt for mum especially 'reclothe us in our rightful mind' The poem when i read it just got me blubbing it all came out what mum couldn't say seemed to be in the poem and has always remained a comfort. one line especially 'and when it's time from your body to be free, remember you're not going you are coming home to me'

Sunday 27 November 2011

Two days after it finished.

Finished my radiotherapy on Friday.

After five weeks of treking to and fro to St Thomas's hospital, right on the other side of the thames opposite westminister. I finally reached the last session. Another experiance to file away in the fight with cancer.

The first visit the day before my birthday was like joining a club as a new member, patients sat conversant with the routine, check in at reception then pop your timtable of sessions into the plastic holder on the wall relating to the machine you are booked into. All but 2 of my sessions were in Electa 1 Electa 1 I felt was the superior maching of the two Electa 4 seemed a bit shabby and creaked a bit more. A radiotherapist, a very pretty austrailan girl who i found out later was called Elise sat with me to go through what was going to happen before i went in.

I had already been for a measuring session and knew that i was to lie face down on the bench. They had tattooed three little black spots on the areas that would be radiated.
I lay down after going to the changing room to remove underwear, i made a mental note to ensure that i always wore a skirt or dress or bought one with me each time to chenge into. I had to hitch the skirt up so that they could align the tattoos to the right measurements on the machine. They would cover my legs with a big piece of blue tissue but inevitably this would shift bit by bit making me feel a little moer vulnerable, but quite honestly after a few sessions it really doesn't matter.
By the last few sessions i knew exactly where i needed to be positioned and they didn't have to move me around too much. They would then once i was in position and they had verified the 'co ordinates' 86.3, 72.8 etc they woud say we are off now press a button that would beep to indicate they had gone then the machine would whirr into action.
As i was face down i would shut my eyes and listen to the music on the cd player that they would leave running, i have to say their taste was particulary poor, though on one occasions suddnely by billy ocean started to play and it was all i could do to keep my composure as Joe took to Billy last year in a very ironic fashion and all i could hear was him singing Suddenly!!! with a bit more passion than is required.
The noise of the radio working was very particular a kind of buzz that would change in duration each time, i counted the longest at about 15 seconds. The noise would start stop and then the machine would whir into another position and buzz again i think about 10 buzzes in total though i never counted. As soon as the last buzz finished i would hear the steps of the radiographers returning and begin to pull my skirt down, they would have to lower the bench and i had to make sure the machine wasn't right above my head before getting up and off.
The first three weeks i drove part way and then got the bus which dropped me right outside. In the last two weeks with the radiotherapy now making it difficult to hold going to the loo i drove all the way in. Paid a fortune for parking but at least got the congestion charge back, and i didn't need to go on the bus which i hated.
After the session i would go back into work but now i have finished i really feel i need a couple of days at home.