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My
Mum
Muriel Blanche Gold is my mum......I say IS because, although she is an angel
in God's garden and has been for 7 years, she is STILL my
mum.
My mum was the bravest person I've ever known. I know that if it
hadn't been for her I would not have been able to cope with being so ill
with Mercury Poisoning. She wasn't around to help me, and I'm glad that she
wasn't, because I would have hated to have her see the pain I was being put
through because of the poisoning. She would have been so upset for me and
would have felt helpless not being able to do anything to help
me.
My mum had Multiple Sclerosis. It didn't serve any purpose, except
to cause her pain, suffering, indignity and causing her to leave this world
before she should have. She was only 64 years old when she died. That
is young these days. It is a young age to die. The only good thing
the MS did, in a round about way, was to give me the courage to get through
the most painful and frightening time of my life.
My mum began to get symptoms of MS in her late teens. She became
clumsy, began dropping things, tripping up her own feet, walking into walls
because she had misjudged the opening of the doorway due to blurred vision
and loss of coordination. Her family and friends laughed...and she laughed
with them....her Jewish relatives called her a "Klutz"...a word meaning "clumsy".
Suddenly the word "klutz" was being thrown around a bit too often,
it became worrying to my mum and those around her. It wasn't normal for someone
to suddenly become so clumsy and everyone urged her to see her
GP.
She had tests, many tests, whether the doctors knew what they were looking
for I don't know. But nothing could be found, or so they told her. She
married my dad, had me, then noticed that the periods of clumsiness were
longer and the periods in between the bouts of clumsiness were shortening.
So back to the doctors she went. I must have been about 3 years old at the
time. And I remember going to the doctors with her and my grandparents and
waiting in the waiting room with my granddad whilst my mum and grandma went
into the surgery. I wasn't sure what we were there for but I knew that my
mum was scared and that she was about to have something done which she did
not want. I thought it was an injection. Injections to a 3 year old
were the worst thing anyone could ever have.
What she was actually there for was a Lumbar Puncture. You may have
heard of a Lumbar Puncture, but under it's other name, a Spinal Tap. A
Lumbar Puncture is a procedure where the patient lays on their side with
their knees drawn up, in a foetal position, and the doctor inserts a needle
between two bones (vertebrae) of the spine in order to draw off some of the
spinal fluid for examination. It is used to diagnose diseases that affect
the brain and spinal cord such as Multiple Sclerosis and Meningitis. At the
time my mum didn't know what the doctor's suspected or why she was having
the Lumbar Puncture. The results came back but when my mum went to
hear what was found she was told there was nothing to worry about. For
some reason, back then in the 50's, doctors were always reluctant to tell
their patients that they had MS and my mum's doctor was no different. It
was quite a while before my mum eventually found out the truth, that she
had Multiple Sclerosis. She was sent to the hospital to see a Neurologist.
That was the first of many, many hospital appointments she had throughout
her lifetime.
Most people, when faced with the fact that they had an incurable disease,
one of which, although couldn't kill you directly, could lead to an
early death due to the complications one could suffer, would want to just
crawl up and die there and then. But not my mum. She was determined
to get on with her life and make the most of it. So she smiled and began
getting on with her life. She had always wanted two children, but after the
diagnosis of MS she was told that having another child could be the worst
thing she could do as her MS would get worse during and after the pregnancy.
The doctors' warnings fell on deaf ears and in 1956 my brother was born.
And my mum carried on smiling.
It was hard for my mum having two young children to look after and
coping with the worsening affects of MS but we didn't suffer at all because
of it. She looked after us and played with us and when things got a little
too much for her my grandparents were always there to lend a hand. My dad
had a job where he could work days or nights and so he changed to night work.
That way, after he had come home and had his sleep, he was able to look after
my brother and I for a little while before going back to work, giving my
mum a well needed rest. And the smiles continued.
Having a small baby in a pram helped my mum. Not only was she happy
and content and found she had a lot to live for, but pushing my brother's
pram or pushchair helped her walk. She was increasingly getting more and
more unsteady on her feet so she had something to hold onto as she walked
along. The hospital had decided she needed a calliper for one of her legs,
it was heavy and unsightly but she carried on smiling despite the fact that
she was no longer able to wear the fashionable stiletto heels which she loved
and had to wear clumpy lace-up shoes instead, one which had to have that
lump of iron attached to it. When my brother became too old to be pushed
around in a pram or pushchair, my mum still carried on taking the pushchair
out with her, she was able to put her shopping into it and of course, she
had something to keep her steady and stop her falling over. But it came
increasingly hard to carry on with the pushchair and around 1960 she was
given a wheelchair.
At first she only used the wheelchair when she went out. My dad or
grandparents would take her out in it. But at home she was able to get around
without it. Social Services provided her with a wooden tea trolley. Using
that she was able to walk from one room to another, taking things which she
needed with her, on the trolley. We also had hand rails put up on the walls
in our hall and she used them to hold on to get from room to room, smiling
as she went. She had good spells and bad spells, which is typical of MS,
they call the "good" spells remissions. MS patients can go into remission
for years....months....maybe just weeks, but whether they were months or
weeks, my mum carried on smiling.
Being a young child, I didn't really understand what she was going through,
how much pain she was in, how she felt inside. She was just "my mum" and
I didn't think anything past that. You don't when you are young. My brother
and I were naughty just like any other children would be. We didn't think
we should be "extra" good because our mum wasn't like other mums, because
she had a wheelchair, to us she was "mum" just like any one of our friends'
mums, except our mum smiled more than theirs.
Eventually, she had to use her wheelchair all the time, both outdoors and
indoors. She would go from one room to another in her wheelchair but once
in the room she would sit in an ordinary chair, or we would see the wheelchair
"parked" outside the bathroom. She was still able to walk but very poorly.
She enjoyed life. She liked to go to Bingo. She liked it even better when
she won!!!! Then her every day smile would be even bigger. I think I was
about 13-14 years old when she first discovered Bingo. And it was around
that time that I realised how much she smiled. I don't know what it was which
made me aware of it. But she carried on smiling and laughing....she had a
lovely laugh, and once she started she couldn't stop, she would be crying
with laughter.
I got married when I was 23 and, so that we could be there for my
mum, my husband had no qualms about moving in with my parents. My dad
had to retire early due to ill health in 1972, but it was no bad deal as
he could be there every day with my mum. They were a very happy couple and
never argued, and he was now able to spend all his time with her, helping
when she needed help.
In 1988 my mum suffered a stroke. It left her with a bad speech defect,
unable to use her right arm and she was no longer able to stand up. So she
was permanently in her wheelchair. Because she was unable to stand at all
due to the paralysis left by the stroke she was unable to use the toilet,
which meant that she had to be fitted with a catheter. For those who don't
know what a catheter is, I'll explain it. It is a tube which is inserted
into the urethra. At the other end of the tube is a bag, this is strapped
to the thigh. When the body needs to get rid of urine, it drains down through
the tube into the bag, then when you need to, you turn a little tap at the
bottom of the bag and the urine drains away. The tap has to be wiped carefully
to keep it as clean and as sterile as possible because germs can find their
way up the tube into the bladder, or worse still, the kidneys, causing infection.
No matter how careful you are it is so very easy to get a urinary tract
infection, and my mum got loads. The first sign was usually a rise
in temperature, then a feeling of being unwell, then the most frightening
symptom.....the bag of urine would become red and cloudy, the red being blood.
Strong anti-biotics have to be prescribed and there is always the possibility
that the bladder infection could become a kidney infection, which it so often
did with my mum, but she smiled through it all. Being incontinent wasn't
a new thing to her as one of the symptoms of MS is incontinence and for years
she had to use pads teamed together with waterproof pants. But being unable
to use the loo meant that she had now become doubly incontinent. Another
MS symptom is constipation. Without going into too much details here, I'll
just say that her bodily waste had to be got rid of manually. I don't think
there could be anything worse than that. To lose ones dignity in such a way.
But my mum kept smiling.
For the last 7 years of her life my mum spent most of each day in bed. She
would get up around 2-3 pm. District nurses came each day to give her a shower,
change her catheter and do whatever else needed to be done. We had learnt
how to change the bag, that didn't need a nurse or doctor. But the catheter
tube had to be done by a nurse. Once the nurses had been she could
get up, but having such a heavy workload they sometimes didn't come till
lunch time. So my mum got up after they had been, then she would go to bed
around 9pm. Being in bed for such long spells and not being able to move
around herself, this caused pressure sores. They would be very bad, the sores
became deep craters in her flesh, so deep that the bone could be seen. Twice
she had to go to hospital and have surgery to close the holes and have skin
grafts. Daily she had to have dressings changed. This went on for years.
But she smiled and laughed all through it.
MS sufferers are susceptible to chest infections, and my mum got many. Because
the muscles of the body waste away and sufferers become so weak it becomes
hard to cough. The lungs become congested and they can't get rid of the mucus.
In May of 1995 she developed a bad cough and cold which let to pneumonia.
She couldn't shake it off and was eventually hospitalised. She was very weak
and on top of the pneumonia she got a bad bladder infection. For two days
we all watched her struggling to breath, trying to cough, but not able to,
but still smiling. Then on the 22nd of June we got a call around 7am in the
morning a call which we knew would eventually come. She had died. She was
only 64 years old, she hadn't even reached pensionable age, that would have
been in the August.
When we were at the hospital the night before I had a very strong feeling
that I wouldn't see her alive again and as we walked away from her bedside
I looked back and said quietly "Goodbye mum, I love you." My dad, husband
and myself went straight to the hospital after we received that call and
we said our goodbyes to her. I know that she was still around, she was waiting
for us before going to Heaven. I felt her there. I spent some time with her,
on my own, just sitting there holding her hand, talking to her quietly, I
know she was there. I felt her presence.
When I got home I sat there in an armchair thinking about my mum. It wasn't
until then that I realised how brave she had been. She knew in the early
stages of her MS how the disease would develop. She was told not to have
any more children, but wouldn't listen and went ahead and had my brother,
knowing full well that the MS would get worse. She smiled every day. She
laughed every day. Whether she was having a good day or a bad day, she smiled
and laughed. Not once did I ever hear her say "Why me?" My mum was very brave,
she had guts!! She wasn't going to let MS ruin her life, she had made up
her mind that she was going to live a normal life as best she
could.
When I got ill with the Mercury Poisoning and was rushed to hospital,
it was very frightening. I was in pain, swollen all over, paralysed, couldn't
speak, could hardly swallow and nobody knew what was wrong with me. Laying
in a hospital bed that night, for a few seconds I just wanted to die. Then
I thought of my mum, and how her life had been. For 45 years she had MS,
it affected her whole life, she was in a lot of pain throughout those years,
she wasn't able to do the one thing she loved most, and that was dance, but
above all, she had lost her dignity in those last 7 years of her life, yet
she was ALWAYS smiling, ALWAYS laughing, and NEVER once thought it unfair
that she had been struck with such a terrible disease. I suddenly felt ashamed
of myself wanting to die, but not only that, I thought that I would be letting
my mum down if I felt that way. My mum had just got on with her life, facing
all that pain and loss of dignity and kept smiling. I made up my mind there
and then, that no matter what was wrong with me, whatever they finally found
it was, I would cope the best I could with it and keep smiling just like
my mum.
I think that most people have a special song which reminds them of
a loved one who is no longer around. There are a lot of songs which I can
relate to my mum, but one in particular is very special to me. It is special
as, on that morning when we came back from the hospital and sat down in that
armchair thinking about my mum, the garden door was open and I could hear
music and words drifting in, coming from a neighbours radio or stereo. As
it was the first song which I'd heard since she died, I made a note of it.
I don't know why but I wanted to always know what the first piece of music
I'd heard after my mum's death was. It wasn't until a year later, when I
found myself laying in a hospital bed ill with Mercury Poisoning that
I realised just how special that song was. It seemed that it just HAD to
be that song which was the first one I'd heard and the one I would always
associate with my mum. Someone, somewhere, was made to play that song, or
put on their radio at that time so that I would hear it, as the song was
so significant to me as I lay in that hospital bed. That song was "Wind Beneath
My Wings." It comes from the movie "Beaches" which starred Bette Midler and
she sang the theme song. The words to the chorus
are:
"Did you ever know that you're my
hero?
And you are everything that I would like to be,
I can fly higher than an eagle,
'Coz you are the wind beneath my wings".
(See link below)
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My mum became the wind beneath my wings as I lay in that hospital
bed. I suddenly realised that song was so very, very special to me. More
than I had thought before. My mum WAS my hero, and she helped me more than
anything else that night. I could feel her lifting me, making me believe
that I would get well, or if I didn't, then she was giving me the strength
to cope, just like she had coped for years. She was making me fly higher
than an eagle, my mum WAS the wind beneath my wings.
Over the years I have written quite a few poems. Sometimes I wake up and
a poem is there in my head and I just have to write it down. Other times
I have to sit and think hard to put one together. Long before I became ill
with the Mercury Poisoning and realised the significance of that song I wanted
to write a poem about my mum.....but I couldn't...the words just wouldn't
form in my head, but I was so desperate to write something that I just sat
down one day and put some words together. It isn't a poem, the words don't
rhyme, but it's what I felt about my mum. It's strange how it ties
in with what is now my favourite song, Wind Beneath My Wings. I had not taken
much notice of the words to that song when I'd heard it that day. When I
wrote my piece about my mum I wasn't thinking at all about that
song.
I'd like to publish those words here on my website as a memorial
to my mum to let her know just how brave I thought she was. I never got the
chance to tell her before she died how I admired her for coping so well and
just how very brave I thought she was. I know that she is looking down on
me from that garden in Heaven and she will be reading this
now.
Mum, this is for you, for the bravest
person I've ever known...I love you and miss you so very much. I miss your
smile, your laugh, your courage,
I miss all of you, every day. xxxxxxxx
HEROES
What is a hero? The fearless fighter-pilot?
The brave mountaineer who scales the highest peak? The intrepid explorer
advancing into unknown
territory? A hero takes on many forms and we all have
our heroes.
Do I have a hero? The simple, plain answer
is yes, I have a hero. A greater hero than any fighter-pilot, mountaineer
or explorer. My hero is my MUM!
My mum was the bravest person I know. She loved to dance but when
illness struck she had to forfeit that great love. To others, not being able
to dance is no great thing, to my mum it was a great
tragedy.
When the simple task of walking was too much for her she sat in
a wheelchair. She sat just like a queen on her throne. She
was a queen!
When her hands became weak and she was unable to hold a pen properly or use
a knife and fork she improvised. She drew a cross for her signature and swapped
a knife and fork for a spoon.
Did she cry out in pain when her painkillers wore off? NO! She
sat as regal as ever in her chair.
Did she shout and scream out "Why me?" NO! She never uttered such
words.
Did she moan and groan about the injustice of what had befallen
her? NO! I never heard a whisper.
She didn't grieve for the loss of the use of her legs
and hands. She didn't grieve for the perfectly formed body which had
become twisted and misshapen.
She accepted all the pain, the loss of dignity. The loss of her freedom.
She never cried, she never moaned. She always smiled, with the sweetest smile
I've ever seen. She sat in her chair dignified and regal. A beautiful,
brave lady. A queen. queen of our home. Not a fighter-pilot, not a mountaineer,
not an explorer, but a very, very brave lady.....a hero...MY HERO.....MY
MUM!
Lyn Rennick (June 1995)
The full words to Wind Beneath My
Wings can be found by clicking this link.
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