Trauma

 It's weird how trauma hits you. You have it, it's in your eyeline waving at you, but you look straight past it. A few years back my mum kept blacking out. There's more to that tale which I will go into. For the purposes of this narrative I will park it as that for now.

She had fallen on her side and was experiencing shortness of breath, she called me just after breakfast, she did not call an ambulance or my older siblings. For good reasons. One would probably be in a pub, the other was scared of his own shadow and didn't like to leave the house. I think the trauma he suffered having been the first born and having 5 years exposure to my parents had probably shot his nerves for the rest of his life.

So it was up to me to drive and see what was going on. I left Lisa, my wife to look after the children.

When I arrived she was in a bad way sitting upright in her dressing gown as I remember bolt upright on the small settee in the corner. Calmly sitting looking fairly calm and trying to not breathe too much. I immediately called an ambulance. They arrived pretty quickly. Assessed her and said she was putting it on. They thought this 85 year old woman was having them on. I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. After a bit of arm twisting I got them to take her to A and E.

The hospital room was full of older individuals who had fallen down stairs, laying on gurneys surrounded by loved ones. It was chaos, although it all seemed quite managed. I am sure it wasn't as dark as I remember. To me, thinking back it feels like a scene from the Boer War. Dark shadows in the corners a 360 view of painful accidents twisting sinew and frail bone. A dark depressing Dutch master piece conveying the aftermath of war.

After hours of painful prodding and X-rays it turned out she had broke a rib and punctured her lung. She needed to be intubated to inflate the lung without aesthetic. So there I was holding my mothers hand while a skilled doctor cut a hole between the ribs, inserted a tube and fixed her.

She didn't flinch. 

Say what you like about her. She was tough as they come. Tougher than me as it turns out. This wasn't her first rodeo, I knew this. My mum had marbled scars on her neck from all the tubes the doctors stuck down her throat, from the outside to drain her lungs of fluid to fight the Tuberculosis she had caught from her father. He unfortunately died from it when she was still in hospital. She was 9 years old when that happened.

Once she had stabilized she was shipped off to another hospital. Exhausted and without any help from anyone from my family I went home. 10pm exhausted. I then woke up at 7, rung the hospital and rushed off to see if I could find her. Once in the hospital I somehow lost my way and found that I was in a "STAFF ONLY" area and needed a passkey to get out. Luckily a kindly doctor let me out. I think they had every right to chloroform me while I was in their domain and harvest my organs for the black market. I take that as another close shave.

Free from the doctors Labyrinth I made it my mission to find her.  When I did eventually find my mother it turned out to be another old lady with a "Green" in her surname. Everyone seems to have trouble with the "HEAD" bit in "GREENHEAD". Don't worry, if you get it wrong, I WILL JUDGE YOU!

So, panic stricken I went back to reception where they directed me to my biological mother. Which was a relief. But also I must admit, I did quite like the look of the old lady they took me to in the first place. I don't think I was allowed to swap parents. I regret not asking.

So, that dealt with we had the problem of looking after dad. He had dementia. Which my mother decided not to tell him. She did once clumsily. It was heart breaking. The doctor was round to see them both. I was in the kitchen making tea. Dad, got up to go to the toilet. As he was gone, mum decided to take the opportunity to talk to the doctor quietly about dads condition. I say quietly, it was like she was talking to a work colleague in a noisy factory, without the factory or noise.

He heard every word up top of the stairs.

 I know this because I was about to call up to tell him the tea was ready to see him sitting in his Stannah chair stair seat, sobbing quietly to himself. I did what any good son would do. Look at my feet spun of my heels and went back in the kitchen and pretend it didn't happen.

Coz that's how we dealt with things in my family.

So with my mum in hospital my dad was on his own in the house for the first time in years. We did all visit him every day. I made dinners and sat with him. My brothers did their bit. Although I think some of the wives did more for one if them than I think he did. It was nice to spend time with him. We never connected. Not even then. All I remember him saying was 

"Where's Jean?"

After a day or so of this, my left eye began to water. I thought it was an infection. I got drops. It wasn't until a few weeks later I realised, I was crying. Once I realised that. I could let it all out. That's when I finally realised we are not in control. Well, not totally anyway.