My Mum... by Bunny82

It's hard to know whether to write this, as I don't want to upset anyone but it seems this may be the only place in the world right now, that understands what's happened to my Mum and me and my Sister.

Please feel free not to read this as it's quite sad and I don't want to worry anyone.

My Mum died on the 13th of November 2010, just coming up to three weeks ago. Six weeks prior to this my Mum was taken to hospital after collapsing at work from a crashing headache. When the ambulance arrived she started vomiting everywhere. It was her boyfriend she called, when she came round, but she had no idea how long she passed out for.

She was taken to the Royal Surrey and after a bleed was shown from her scan, she was blue lighted up to the Atkinson Morely where the specialist doctors could shed more light. They did two angiograms, both of which showed the bleed, but with nothing else, no aneurysm, nothing. They put it down to chemical Meningitis and my Mum was to go home and rest, not work, nothing, just get better.

So she came to stay with me .... she stayed in bed and was very tired and emotional. After a few days, I felt she wasn't looking good at all, she wouldn't eat and vomited frequently. My mother never even complained when she had skin cancer five years previous, so I knew this was bad.

She decided to go home, have her boyfriend look after her, as my little girl and dogs were not helping her headaches and slowly she recovered. Even after her follow up chat at the Atkinson Morely hospital, with the top neuro surgeon, he told her to go and live her life, there was a million to one chance of this ever happening again, he even put this in a letter. We all felt the relief.

Six weeks later mum collapsed again in the garden, we have no idea how long she was there as after she managed to call her boyfriend he arrived and she was covered in mud, her rotary washing line bent over where she must have fallen into it, her glasses in the plants.

She vomited up the painkillers he gave her and phoned for and ambulance, again to the royal Surrey, a scan showed a fresh bleed. She waited for a bed at the Atkinson Morely and was bluelighted up there 12 or so hours later when one became avaliable.

The angiogram showed an aneurysm, the first scan she had, six weeks ago didn't detect the aneurysm as blood had clotted inside it, so the dye from the angiogram bypassed the aneurysm showing healthy vessels.

During the six weeks the clot dispersed letting blood in causing a bleed that now required surgery to clip the aneurysm. Mum was very scared and upset. Instead of being in theatre four hours she was in there 6+ This scared me and I knew something was wrong. Me and my sister went to see Mum in intensive care. My strong mother looked like a tiny child with wires everywhere. I was shocked beyond words.

We spoke with the surgeon. Mum's aneurysm was surrounded by so many vessels, some as fine as hair, the aneurysm was so large they had to clip it in three different places possibly causing damage.

We had to wait for her to regain conciousness. That was the following morning, and God bless her, how could that have been Mum? Paralysed down the left side, writhing about in pain, unable to speak, I couldn't believe what my beautiful Mum was going through.

The doctors wanted to see if Mum could move the left side which at times she did move her arm and they prayed she would prove us all wrong and regain movement. The psychological damage wouldn't be realised until she regained health. Me and my Sister went for a tea in the hospital cafe... I was immediately called back, Mum had had a massive stroke at that moment, a scan showed that the left side of her brain had died as a result and would never be repaired.

We sat dumb founded as a surgeon told us that they expected the rest of Mum's brain to die overnight, then the brain stem, declaring her brain dead. I could not believe what was happening. I walked over to Mum's bed and I will not go into detail of how my Mum looked, but she physically looked brain dead and that affected her face and I've never felt the darkness I felt then.

I held her hand and cried on her shoulder, watched my Sister kissing her head and her boyfriend will her to get better. During the night her pupils stopped dilating, a sign that the brain has died, at 11:02 the next morning they performed the tests to see if there was any brain activity, there wasn't. Mum had died and her heart was beating because of the ventalator. We said goodbye.

Mum's funeral was last Friday and I recieved her ashes yesterday. I used to call my mum at least three times a day, it's why my phone bills are awful!! we were so close in the last five years and regularly spent time with her and my sister with my daughter that my Mum adored.

I came to this site as I felt like no one could help me, the doctors want to scan me and my Sister and I'm distraught with fear that this will happen to me.

I pray I've not upset anyone by writing this but I needed to get the words out.

Wishing you all good health and love, Joanne.x