This is gonna be hard for me to write and there’s a lot to go through that will probably take weeks or even months which it will be private until I feel I need to edit and revise this again before I publish. There’s a lot going on with moving out etc and I’ve never written this much in my life before so working on this is going to spaced out quite a bit. Whole situation is really fucked.
On 02/09/24 8:18 AM I hear the home phone ring multiple times so I was like who tf is trying to call and get a hold of me or mum because mum usually answers the home phone (I usually have ‘Do not disturb’ on for mobile phone calls at a certain time while I sleep). So I touched my phone while half asleep (to see if it vibrates so it tells me if someone tried calling before) and it did vibrate so I assumed it was an emergency, checked my phone and there was like 8 missed calls from my sister. Instantly in the back of my mind I had a suspicion something happened to mum because she was getting to that age where anything can happen. I call her back and my sister said that mum had a heart attack and I need to race down (since my mum works only just down the road) and she’ll be there in 15 min. I was like ohh fuck no, not now.
I ran down to her work with a sharp feeling in my chest of anxiety. When arriving I see her being taken into the back of an ambulance, she sees me and tears up a little. I felt really pale or at least I felt it because this was something I’ve never seen her go through before. They done a few tests in the ambulance, asked her questions about what medications they can give her due to potential allergies and diagnosing a potential cause.
What happened is she was having some gradual pain in her right arm until her chest was really hurting, her coworkers ask if she needs to go to the hospital or anything but she is a bit stubborn lol and it got to the point where the pain was worse than labour pain. She fell to the floor in pain and vomiting, which her coworkers immediately had to call an ambulance.
Back to me being with mum in the ambulance, the paramedics are actual characters, they are actually pretty funny to the point where they try to shit stir mum a little bit haha. I assume they would be trained to do that to ease the situation and enlighten the mood a bit. Mum at that time didn’t seem to be that bad, she had a bit of pain still but still able to talk and joke around. My sister and my niece showed up to hear the whole situation and at that point the paramedics most likely think that it was a heart attack. We were there for like 30-40 min because there was a little wait delay to get nearby paramedics to assist further and confirm which hospital to go to. There was a lady that had a kebab store right next to where she worked that used to get discounts since mum always bought from her and supported her since her store and the whole plaza inside got robbed and trashed very recently. But she went out of her way to support mum and the paramedics with anything which I was truly grateful. I stayed with mum in the ambulance and my niece went to go back home and get her some spare clothes while my sister will try to follow behind. It was actually pretty cool being front seat with sirens on seeing everyone move out of the way, feels like something out of GTA lmao.
We made it to the hospital and had to sign a few things then she immediately had to go into a ward while I had to go into the waiting room which I roughly waited for like 15-20 min until my sister came, chatted for a bit while being freaked out about the situation. Another 15-20 min later and we got called in. We saw mum and we were all super worried. She didn’t look bad at all, she still talked and acted like she usually does and casually talking about the whole situation. Through the span of a few hours, we had to leave the ward a few times while there was multiple nurses and tests being done to diagnose the issue further.
While we were waiting, me and sis went to the news agent to get her some crosswords and a magazine of old english history since she liked the royals a fair bit. My sister notice that everywhere in the hospital there’s no sugar drinks anywhere, it’s all just sugar free, yet there’s chocolate bars and candy there, make it make sense.
We came back to see mum and she still looked fine like nothing really happened. The nurses are very friendly except maybe one that kinda had a bit of a dickish attitude sort of thing where his body language was slouching and when the monitor wasnt working, he would move it all around and smack it sort of thing. He was ex military apparently so that probably explains part of it. But he was alright in the mean time talking to mum and joking around etc saying he vapes himself and why he stopped being in the military etc. While I was the ward with everyone, there was an interesting incident where I heard someone yell out a few times which eventually turned into some ruffling in the background, I look out of the ward and see some islander person on the floor with everyone on top of him. The islander was saying some random shit like “Nomads forever” and instantly thought, yeah it’s a bikie gang cunt. Forgot they still existed. The person in the ward next to us also said this guy has been going at it for hours, so he’s just a fkn nut case. I guess you do get some crazy people in hospitals all the time.
But yeah mum wasn’t in much pain at the time, only thing she mainly complained about is the blood pressure machine on her arm goes off every 30 min, the IV tube things that were in her arm when she moves it kinda stabbed her every time and of course the bed was a bit uncomfortable which you’d think that they’d have more comfortable beds these days. Oh and when the nurses asks questions (because they have to every so often to make sure you are still all there) and if she needs anything, she always responds with “Well, I would love a coffee or a smoke” which we all laughed every time. Those 2 things was her go-to for relaxing, she always has coffee in the morning and during the day, and you always see her smoke. I hate the smell of tobacco but if it soothes her mind from anything, then I don’t have a problem with it, buuut… just be aware that I will cover up my nose or use a gas mask if I need to, lmao. Apparently when she was asked how much cigarettes she smoked a day, she said around 25 a day, which got me thinking wtf that’s a lot within a short time.
Mathematically that’s 1.5 times an hour, which everyone kinda pointed this was a main potential cause but she was really healthy; she ate healthy, was active doing stuff around the house, she seemed mentally fine also, despite her history of her husband’s suicide in front of everyone, in her 20s (I believe while my brother and sister was around, I wasn’t born yet) her mum was cutting her wrist for attention which is really fucked up and there was some stupid beef with parts of her husband’s side of the family. But mum was really strong dealing with all this mentally and very stern to protect us as kids, which is very reasonable in this case. Apparently in her words I was her savior, I was a very engaging and chubby kid back then, used to re-enact all the characters on tv like the Hooley Dooleys, The Wiggles and Blues Clues haha (was around maybe 2-3 yr old). There was at one point where we went to movie world and there were people performing and I went to act it out myself and a whole crowd came around to watch me and thought it was super cute. Mum was a little embarrassed but she loved it. There was even photographers even taking pictures of me. She really thought I would be a stunt man or an actor.
Back to the hospital, after a few tests here and there; they confirmed it was a heart attack and there was a blood clot near her heart which there was formation of plaque. Plaque forms in one of a few ways, one being high in cholesterol which mum did have and was already working towards resolving it. At this point they need to identify if there are any other clots in her system, so there’s this procedure called an angiogram which they put dye in her veins to check if there are any other blockages. During this process they also need to use blood thinners which is a medication to prevent blood clots and without this, you’ll be more at risk of getting a blood clot overall which people thought that the blood thinners was the cause of what happened to mum but it wasn’t.
It took a while for this process to begin since hospitals are always busy but the nurses always kept asking about whether if the procedure is ready yet which is a really good thing to see. So while waiting; me, my sister, brother and my niece was there with her talking about the situation and random stuff. My brother is always the type to make jokes even if it’s a little bit too far, least he make everyone laugh. Since I’m a very introverted person that doesn’t really talk, hospitals aren’t really an entertaining place so I was going through mum’s crosswords and telling her some clues (I didn’t realise how vague the clues were, there was a few I noticed due to my culture of the internet tho hehe) and just generally listening to mum’s stories etc.
The nurses came over and it was time to do the procedure which will take a few hours which it was getting dark so me and my older sister decided to go out and have some dinner at Nando’s since I’ve never had them before which we had those little chicken tenders, it was a bit dry but it wasn’t too bad I guess lol. We ate in the main hall of the hospital talking about the situation to others on the phone while I’m just looking around the little semi museum historic glass section in the hospital which was pretty cool to see. We eventually moved over closer to the ward section towards the outside part where people can smoke etc (sister is a smoker), waited there for a bit since we are still awaiting for a response on the situation. There wasn’t much I could do to pass the time since my phone was on 4% in optimized mode since I forgot charge my phone last night which surprisingly it stayed on for that long.
Then suddenly I get a phone call from the medical specialist and they were saying that it’s not looking good, she had a stroke during the procedure where it initially starting with arm wasn’t able to move and she was slurring her speech. I was in shock and tearing up with crazy mad anxiety flowing through my body. Half way through the conversation, the phone died on me. FFS at the worst time. Wasn’t that bad of an issue since they’ll call my sister anyway which they did shortly after, and when they informed her about the situation, she crouched down with tears in her eyes and in pain. The strong anxiety I had was nothing I have ever felt before, it was actually hurting quite a lot, I can tell it wasn’t good at all. After she was off the phone with the specialist, she told me that during the procedure she did have a stroke as previously mentioned, they had to put a stent to open the blood clot and that it’s very slim that she will be able to survive it. That’s when I start breaking into tears and struggling to breathe, like hyperventilating sobbing type crying. Me and my sister were hugging each other in tears. I had in the back of my mind, she’s gone but at the same time I really hopes she pulls through this. My sister said “Mum’s strong, she can get through this” while both us struggling to breath and heavily crying. My sister rang the close family and my brother (he went out do drop something off for work while waiting on the procedure) informing on the situation and calling them over, while she was doing that, I was still in shock crying nonstop walking around freaking out for a while. After about 30 mins or more of having the worst feeling of my life, my sister got another call by the specialist saying he’s very sorry about the situation, it’s not good and would like to speak in person. We quickly walk towards the location, still flowing of tears down my face, it’s that apparent everyone else when we walked past the waiting room picked up on it.
We got to the secluded room and said that he’s very very sorry about the situation. Before he started say anything, my sister asked if she can call my brother, after a few attempts he didn’t pick up. We went ahead of discussing the situation anyway. He started off saying that she had to take blood thinners to reduce further heart attacks and while doing an angiogram (dye procedure) she had a stroke with her arm that wasn’t able to move and she was slurring her speech a fair bit. (Apparently at this point we heard this from a day or so ago from today (10/09/24) that she didn’t know what was going on and wasn’t in pain at all, pretty much delirious. Which we were very glad to hear) When they had to put a stent to open up the blood clot that was near her heart, during the current procedures while that was opened up and clearing any plaque etc, apparently with the blood thinners thinned the blood soo thin that it crept past the clot and went straight into her brain which absorbed the blood and expanded to the point that locks off the arteries and oxygen to the internal of the brain. Which in the end very unfortunately lead her to brain death. After hearing that I broke down again and hyperventilating again, this usually happens when I hurt badly while crying, it happened when my dog died many years back. And while he mainly finished explaining the situation, my brother called and basically just re-said the whole situation again. The specialist gave his dearly condolences and gave us some space to grieve. Me and my sister looked like a mess while my brother by the sounds of it, didn’t really react that much. He’s the type of person that see everything in a realistic aspect and sees things 10 steps ahead. We went out to a waiting room and I was still endlessly crying, my sister went ahead and called everyone to come because mum technically died tonight. I called my dad and struggling to get a signal due to calling him on facebook for some reason (idk why he prefers to call on that), finally got a hold of him and told him about it and he raced to the hospital as soon as possible.
Everyone came, my 2 nieces and one of their fiancé, my nephew, my cousin and her ex, my dad, my brother’s ex (which I didnt like that much), We all hugged each other and informing everyone about the whole situation. I was sobbing a fair bit worse than everyone else. After like 30-40 min they asked if we would like to see mum which we agreed to go in. My heart was feeling soo shallow due to my anxiety going crazy. Walking down the halls it felt like I was in slow motion, soo many feelings going through me at the same time. Finally came up to her ward and saw her straight pale face. I broke down again having another breathing fit that prolonged the longest I’ve ever cried before. Everyone was gathering up and hugging each other, crying non stop. My breathing fit was going crazy, everyone noticed and was really comforting me. The only one that wasn’t crying was my brother, but he’s a really hard nut to crack for emotions, but I can definitely tell he was hurting inside. My sister went over to mum and held her hand saying that she and everyone loved her and thanked her for everything. I also went over and sat next to mum and held her hand, sobbing and just going through the memories in my head that she was there for me. My niece and dad was always next to me comforting me every step of this very sad situation.
My dad told me when I’m ready he would like to talk privately. After a few minutes me and dad went into an outside balcony right next to the ward. He said that “I know this is really hard for everyone especially you since you were the closest to her, but promise me that it wont get to your head too much, I had to put my mum in a nursing home for 3 years and hated every part of it”. I told him it just really god damn sucks and it happened soo quickly, but at the same time I’m glad that it happened quick that she isn’t suffering in any pain. I also said that mum told me I was her little savior because before he had me she was going through a rough time (Her husband killed himself in front of everyone a year before I was born). And I was, she loved every second of my childhood and today as a grown adult. But basically what my dad was generally saying that he and the whole family is here for me anytime and I am there for them. Life can change within an instant like the situation now, so really make the most of it while you still can.