Being Karen’s daughter

I remember the day we had the car accident, possibly the day the world changed for my mum.

I remember the man who hit us running towards our upside-down car. He was screaming: WHAT HAVE I DONE? Well, what you did was make my mum not able to live her life to her fullest potential. I am mad at him still. As a result of your actions you hurt someone I care about.

I remember asking mum about the man who crashed into us: Will he be sued? Mum said: No, I don’t believe in suing people. However, she did say: If I could just write him a letter on how he has ruined my life, then I would want to do that.

I remember the pain afterwards, and for the following years as she was trying to get on with her life. She pushed boundaries to see what her body would allow her to do. This impacted her life greatly.

When she told me how much medication she was on all I could think of was, how are you still functioning? I have a little knowledge of medication because of my profession, and I was shocked with what she was taking. When did this get to be this much? How did the doctors allow her to be on so much? How is she managing to get up every day? The answer is; because she is a strong mum who has to do what she has to do; which has always been the right thing.

Mum notified me that she would be going into hospital for the ketamine treatment to hopefully get rid of the pain and also cease the medication. I was secretly worried. What if it didn’t work, what if she was in more pain? I knew she would get through the ketamine treatment. I have known her for 28 years, there isn’t much that my mum doesn’t put her mind to that she doesn’t accomplish.

On ketamine she was dazed. Her eyes gave long, large, blinks. She had trouble keeping eye contact with me. She was highly emotional, and her speech was slowed. Trying to keep a positive attitude with her was troublesome. She was determined not to let the bad thoughts get in her head. She would count the other patients who weren’t able to continue the treatment; this would secretly make her more determined to finish.

She had a large tube coming out of the inside of her arm (this looked painful). She told me that they had to take an x-ray before they could put the tube in.

We got into one emotional argument (tears in two seconds from me), which I should have not entered into. I was trying to help her see past the private room issue. I knew that everyone else had failed, so I am not sure why I thought I would get through. I had tried a couple of tactics, being nice, being positive and being logical. THEN I grouched at her, telling her there are sicker people out there. Unfortunately, this did not go down well. She told me that she didn’t ask for this. She didn’t ask to be in pain and she didn’t ask for this person to run a red light. I backed down, as I understood that she was right. She didn’t deserve this.

Mum talked to me about what she was doing to keep herself occupied in hospital. She told me that when the TV show she was watching was getting a bit too much she would stop watching it. She was not going down that dark rabbit hole.

Luckily Mum hadn’t lost her sense of humour. Every day she ticked the dinner menu to include a small bottle of wine. She stashed them in her drawer for when she left and couldn’t wait to post it on her blog as being totally inappropriate (she still ticked it!).

She developed a bad cough that she thought might have been from flowers someone had given her, so we removed those and gave it to the nurses. However, the cough didn’t go away, she was sucking on Strepsils, but it was making her agitated.

I visited her three times after work. My dad and I took her for slow, tortoise walks around the hospital. One day we went and sat on a park bench. She seemed to do better when we were outside, more relaxed and calm. I didn’t want to leave her because I didn’t want her to be stuck with her thoughts, on what will happen in the future, or if she will be kicked out of her private room.

Honestly, it was hard for me to see her like that, but I wanted to be there for her.

I was a proud daughter when Mum had finished her treatment. I hope it continues to work for her as she deserves not to be in pain anymore. Her health is important and therefore she needs to not be on so much medication.