On 19th July 2011, I suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage after a rupture of a cerebral aneurysm. I spent 8 weeks in Royal Hallamshire hospital in ITU and HDU. I was transferred to the Northern General Hospital, Osborn 4 Neuro-rehabilitation ward for a further 7 months. I was unable to talk, walk and had weakness on my right side after a stroke. In February 2012, after a procedure called a Shunt, I began to walk & talk. These are my daily activities, memories and thoughts.....enjoy :)
The brain does go off track every now and then..............that's life!
There is a sparkle of sunshine on the horizon which follows me whatever way I turn.
After the wonderful day in sunshine, music and laughter in the Winding Wheel, it was a great scene to watch it all over again.
They had Land Ladies who worked so hard even polishing the horse harness to keep the leather soft.
When you have fallen, it's the hardest thing to do when you wish to walk tall.
I seem to fall every day!
There has been lots of hiccups in life of late!
Why is my life full of gaps!
Where am I going?
What to do?
Is this my life!!!.................All these gaps on every page!
When I started to try to fill in the gaps in my family life; there was a brilliance of sunshine, love, light and the most important thing is the knowledge, the truth and the hurt.
Not one of us is perfect..............not even I !
I'm the most un-perfect sick person who has dragged all of my family around my heels as I have kicked my heels and used colourful language and yes........I do react back to the words that they give to me for me to react quite un-ladylike to bring things alive that has been hidden in the silent mind.
Please bear with me here, as the letter was sent via Facebook and this is the way that it arrives here, it's quite amusing to me as this is partly like my life...........all one sided !
C'est la vie......Such is life !
Hi
my wonderful sister Pauline
Well it looks as though it’s finally time to let you have the last part
of Dads gift (surely must be on the 200+ days now). I thought you’d be
able to treat yourself on your birthday this year. We the family can’t
believe it’s almost 2 years since we all met up for your 50th, it was
such an amazing, marvellous weekend and everyone was so excited at the
progress you had made then, so you can imagine how family and friends
are feeling about your progress now.
I mentioned to you in
my text on Tuesday 4th Feb that one of the reasons I’ve held back on
this moment is due to the fact it will hurt so much not to have any more
excuses to have contact with you in my life, and I do wish that I had
changed it all into Scottish £1 notes and sent you one per week, which
would have meant I’d be able to correspond for the next 9yr and 8mth.
However due to all the Good, Bad & Ugly remarks you make about me in
your Blog then I realise you will perhaps always have myself and the
rest of your family at the back of your mind, I loved the fact that you
said I made you laugh on your blog dated Sunday 02nd Feb which made me
realise that we think of each other across the miles because I bought
your voucher just the day before on the 01st Feb, it was almost as if
you knew and decided to get a quick last rant in about me hehehehehe.
It seems as though I shall just have to send you updates and hope that
you’ll make the effort to collect them from Steve Jones knowing there
will be no monetary incentive, and as your Blog gives everyone your
status there’ll be no need for you to reply. I also have the several
answer phone messages you left for me to play back and listen to your
voice along with the wonderful recordings of you in the first few months
of finding your voice.
As I said I bought you your voucher way back on
01st Feb and yes you’re correct it has done a bit of travelling, but
first week only as far as Dunoon where I was going to buy you a nice
postcard to go with it, but I got caught up with the excitement of
seeing Mum after her trip away that it did indeed slip my mind. I’m
afraid old age dinnae come alone. The final trip it made was to
Liverpool so that it would leave from where it started.
Lance and I went back up
to spend the week with Mum and help to further the progress of her new
kitchen, you’d love it as it’s sooooo modern, black and white with
splashes of red. Going back up to see her while I’m up to see Gary
Barlow, there is a ticket for you if you want to come, but I doubt it,
so I’ve got a standby at the ready. You’ve got my number if you do want
to come.
Sarah Jane is still waiting on the paperwork to finish off her house
purchase. Mikey is now working with George and waiting to hear from
positions he’s applied for in Australia. Robert is in Dunstable with his
sisters and then moving up to Dunoon next week with the view of joining
up to the Forces. Lance has now become self employed and we’re planning
on moving to Scotland late summer. Mo turns 60 in May and we’re off to
Crete to celebrate.
My job as an RSW is giving me great pleasure and insight into the effect
a BTI has on not only the patient but the knock on effect to everyone
within the family and friend circle so differently. One major change
with you is how your painting art work has gone beyond what you could
ever have wished for, perhaps you should try out the silver/jewellery
making or knitting again eh??
I have just finished reading a book by a young girl who also came
through a BTI and taken on board a paragraph from it as below
“My family tell me I work on my emotional level, so I get angry if I
feel stressed. I see everything as brilliant if I am calm, and I send
touching cards and pretty flowers, which my mum just loves. I can
misconstrue someone’s friendliness so that I think they are the best
person ever. I construe it as criticism when someone (usually my sister)
questions me about something. I act impulsively, as friends and family
know, firing off email and text messages to update the world on what I
am doing, and probably not giving a second thought as to whether my
solicitor (or similar person) is all that interested in the fact that I
have just run two miles or am in the mood for a chocolate ice cream.”
So all in, we are gonna have to accept the change in you means that you
have cut off your closest family and taken on board your estranged
family, but as we the ex closest family only want what’s best for you we
have taken everything you have thrown at us verbally and written and
now that you have received this final instalment we know that it is a
means to an end.
I wonder if my mornings will change now that I’ve sent this, as every
day I wake up you are in my opening thoughts and it makes me wonder what
will take the place of you???? Wonder if I could sell the vacant space
that’s gonna be there daily xxxxxxx
Don’t ever forget that I have and always will love you with every beat
of my heart.
Your sister with all the names under the sun you have bestowed on me
xxxx mwah
This has been my life up until now..........It's time to change for the future.
Living through the aftermath of the Subarachnoid Haemorrhage, my body was very vulnerable just to breathe in and out, see things through the red vision.
You feel and sense new things for the first time.
Your becoming alive and regrowing all over again.
People can't physically see what is there only I can feel through the fear of falling down again.
Life can move forwards, no holding me back !
It's a new start for me, my future, my new life.
I throw out the old and make a new beginning.
My Family, is the most precious thing to me, we are 7; seven siblings, a big family full of chaos, laughter, up's & down's, the regular chaotic lives of rearing children and grandchildren.
I've pulled us all apart with my Traumatic Brain Injury.
I've got plenty plasters and ointment to heal us all together, join us together the way we were.
I've had the sick, tired, angry, upsetting lovely brain who is coming home.
......Never give up on the family.................I've never given up on them all.
We proudly deserve to be this chaotic rebelious Quinn Family from Easterhouse in Glasgow......
Ah what great memories about our youth, the camping in Cornwall, Devon.
How many of us in the brown Zodiac Zepher car as we tumbled together into each others legs, arms, poked the ribs, stuck our fingers in someone elses nose, feet up in the air as some of us were on the floor where your feet should be.
We sang our favourite song:-
"Why, Why, Why, Delilah.....dee dee dee dee dee dee deeee!"
When we were doing the mammoth long congested drive from the top of the world to the bottom of the world, other drivers must have looked into the car in amazement at the amount of children in the back seat as Monty, being the baby, had the best view along with the room as she sat on mums knee in the front seat. The front seat was the same as the back seat.....a continuation like the family.
When we showered on the camping area, we Ladies or Laddies sat outside the laundry room as we dried our long tangled hair from the big tumble dryer vent in the sunshine.
We knew even then how to look after the pennies as the pounds looked after themselves.
A big family knew exactly what to do being the largest family that I've ever heard of, until now!
I remember families of even 12, yes twelve children being as boisterous as we were which was a great foothold to keep us stable in life.
LIFE IS BACK !
I'm Back !
Thankyou my boisterous, rebelious, caring, loving Family.
What a great legacy that Mr Tony Benn has left for us all.
You can look at, read about, physically see, or even, have been a part of the great results which he has done in his past.
He was and still is a great gentle man with great truthful quotes which will always follow his name.
Here is a few special quotes that he came out with which I agree with:-
* " If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people."
* " I'm not frightened about death. I don't know why, but I just feel that at a certain moment your switch is swithched off, and that's it. And you can't do anything about it."
* " It's the same each time with progress.
First they
ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a
pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you."
His words still march on..........................
I talk to Primrose and the 3 Muskateers; we laugh and cry, laugh and cry and laugh and cry again.
It gets very emotional, I need to sleep.....deep and sound!
The memories are returning like before........ it's like the time in the summer of 2012.
These memories are abundant in this fragile inner head.
This beautiful brain and my determination has come forth to the light.
It brings back my last day off from work when I was the Breakfast Supervisor in the Mercure Hotel Sheffield.
I couldn't move as I lay on the bed.
Why was the replacement car in the driveway and where was I???
Got another councelling day, Hoorah!
Life is getting back.
Bringing Life back to yourself is the most exhuberant experience.
I actually dusted my livingroom which is a tough physical thing to do.
I may have dusted about 3 times in the span of a year.
I hoovered too!!!
Hoovering for me; is to get my forefinger and thumb and allow them to go into a scissor movement to pick up the the crumbs and the fluff on the living room and bedroom rugs.
I dont bother with anything else as I get too tired after all the bending down.
I must save up some pennies from my weekly £80 to buy a hoover.
Can you imagine.......Me, living without a hoover for over a year!
I need to sort out this life of mine..............!
I came across a bag with some pictures.
I've put up on the Clean shelf, 7.... seven pictures of my son Robert Murray Love as a child and the scan picture of my grandson Boyd.
What a gift to see my grandson as he is arranging himself to be born into the world.
He shall be a fine man in this confusing world at times.
I'm proud to see and watch him bloom into this world.
I'll go and phone him, I know what I'm like.........I talk, talk, talk, talk, talk!
I'll Be Back!............... as Arnold says...........
.
Ricky Hunter with the dancers and singers, a great atmosphere had by all.
