My Mum's Story by Emma

Sunday 20th December 2009 started as a normal day, five days before Christmas and wrapping presents. It was around 3 o'clock when I decided to ring my Mum. She told me she didn't feel well she had a pain in her head, down her neck and into her shoulders. She asked me could I come around and I said I was on the way. As I drove the short distance I knew something was wrong but stayed really calm for some reason.

My sister rang on the way and said she'd spoke to Mum and that she sounded like she'd had a stroke. I got there 5 minutes later and found her sitting up on the couch; she told me she had been shopping, had come back and felt like she had been hit by a ton of bricks. I sat with her and got her a drink - she told me to ring an ambulance. The ambulance arrived 10 - 15 minutes later and did some tests on Mum. They took her in the ambulance and she started to vomit. 10 minutes later we were at the hospital. We were told they were going to take Mum for a CT scan and we went and waited for her. As we walked back in the nurses face said it all, she ushered us into the family room and we were told the doctor was on her way to talk to us.

We were told my Mum had had a bleed into the middle part of the brain but that she had been accepted into Walton Neurological Hospital who would help her. An ambulance came to take her at around 7pm and we drove there to be with her. She was told they would investigate more the next day and we were told to go home to get some sleep.

The next day the doctors explained that Mum had a ruptured aneurysm, it was in an uncommon place and they would operate the next day as an intensive care bed was not avaliable that night. The next morning Mum had the aneursym coiled they told us the operation had gone well but there was some problem with eye movement. For the next few days, we visited her in HDU. She was conscious, but in pain and very tired. Boxing Day came and she had been moved onto the ward. We visited her and she seemed very tired and was unable to speak to us. We told her to sleep and we would be back that night.

At around 5pm, we had a phone call from the hospital. Mum had developed hydrocephalus and was rushed to surgery to relieve the pressure that had built up in her brain. She was now in ICU and sedated with tubes everywhere. The next day she was taken off sedation and showed good movements in her arms and legs but was still on a ventilator. On the 30th December, she had a second bleed and doctors could not understand why this had happened - the coiling had looked fine on the CT scan. Due to more complications (including a collapsed lung) the doctors were unable to investigate what was happening and before they could get a chance to find out she had a third catastrophic bleed on 2nd January. She passed away on the 5th January 2010 aged 63. It has been 9 months now and I still can't believe she has gone. We miss you everyday Mum, R.I.P xxx