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Almost two years on


Glopieo

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I won't bother you all with the details. I lost my father in November 2015, over the course of two hours on a Sunday morning. I was 22 at the time , and had just started my second year of uni. I'm 23 now, coming to the end of a placement year and going into my last year in September.

We've always been an incredibly close family, so you'd think that would be a benefit when something like this happens. Unfortunately not so much. I never moved away for uni for financial reasons - clearly a good thing - and remained home when it all happened, so my mum has never been alone. I know she always takes bad news pretty badly (for lack of a better word) and never expected her to get over this within a year or so. 

However, even now I come home to find half a bottle of wine gone. If it's not that and she's upset, she'll be snappy. If she's upset and tipsy, the truths start to come out, and unfortunately are very much directed at me. I end up being questioned and go round the same circles every time "what was he like the night before?" "Why didn't you phone 111 the night before when I was at work?"

From this, I've even had to arrange a meeting with the hospital for her (she feels the way we were treated by paramedics was wrong, and is understandably annoyed we never got s chance to go into resus and say goodbye). We've been waiting for the date for this meeting to come through for the last 4 months - today it finally came and the meeting is in a few weeks time. I've explained I won't be going - I don't need to be told by medical professionals that he may still be here if I'd phoned the night before, and I don't need to go through those hours in fine details again 

It doesn't help that I've never really processed what happened (I'm not sure if I haven't processed and put it to the back of my mind, or I have processed and I've just moved on super fast). I was still in bed sleeping when my mum came into the room on the phone to the ambulance providing directions, and from that point of leaping out of bed I don't think I've switched off. Anxiety tore me up around the first anniversary last year, abd I never understood that constant adrenaline until (cliche I know) I heard Prince Harry speak out this week. One line stood out to me "I was ready to punch someone". I can't say that, but I understand that constant feeling of being 'ready to go' and jumping st anyone who showed sign of aggression. 

I don't think I've 'thought' of my dad enough - I've always been preoccupied with my mother who refuses to try help herself, and for that amongst reasons mentioned above, I feel anger towards her. I can't even think of my dad now without her 111 questions popping in my mind. 

I don't speak about any of this to any friends, they all think I'm coping fine. I am coping - true -  but I think I'll fall apart with the pressure of my final year. When it 'all happened' I had uni work to dive into and take my mind off of things.. I see now that probably didn't help.

Now I've reached the end of this page, I can't even think why I started writing it! I guess I was looking for people in a similar position. Young but feeling so trapped 

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@Glopieo  I'm so sorry for the loss of your father.  And I'm really sorry you have to endure the actions of your grieving mother.  It is clear she is in great pain and does not know how to cope with the loss, but it is incredibly unfair what she is doing to you.   You don't provide much details on the cause of death but you cannot be held responsible for what happened.  Based on your post here, I can tell you are a very kind and caring person, and I know you did the best you could with the information you had at the time.  Unfortunately, bad things happen all the time, and I do believe things happen for a reason.  Sadly, it was simply your dad's time to go.   

Based on your mom's methods of coping, is it possible for the two of you to seek counselling?   Although I don't expect her to be perfectly happy after a year, I don't think drinking and unfairly blaming you for actions that may or may not have made a difference is healthy for her and it's very destructive to you.   She might not even be aware of what she is doing.  Is it possible to speak to her about it?   Can you tell her how it makes you feel?   At least for yourself, try to seek counselling.  You need to be able to grieve for your dad in a safe place and right now you have been taking care of your mother and haven't had the chance to focus and heal yourself.  You need to spend some time on yourself 

Please keep posting.  It often helps 

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Hey Dgiirl, thanks for replying 

I keep reading it and either don't really know how to reply back or I think 'wow I've blown this way out of proportion' but then there's another bad day and I realise why I came here in the first place.

I've always been a believer in things happen for a reason too like you say, but this just blows all of that up. Other things have happened as I was growing up which made me mature pretty quickly too, probably a reason why I'm handling it as well as I am on the surface. It does make me think like was I put here to take the **** that happens to our family? In a totally selfish way, I'm always the one to pick up the pieces - my brother (7 years older) has always been away when something has happened. He doesn't know how bad mum is (I never told him as he had his first child last year and is quite high up in a business which is stressful enough). I know that's terrible of me to say but it is pretty uncanny. 

As for details surrounding dads death - I didn't really want to bore you with them. Sure, death happens etc and I didn't want to be a person coming here just to say 'X as died what do I do'. I get that people struggle but I'd like to have thought I wouldn't need to do anything like this. 

He had been suffering with (obviously what we thought was) a pretty bad cold starting on the Wednesday, and his colleagues sent him home early on Friday since there was only box work left and everything was pretty quiet. 'Man flu' right? Anyway we put it down to being the normal Flu - he'd get a temperature and sweat like mad, then the next hour be shivering. That was the Saturday - I spent the day in my room doing my uni work as my first deadline of the second year was on Sunday.

Mum went to work as normal the Saturday evening, and I stayed with dad making cups of tea and keeping on top of any medications that might help. I carried on with uni work on my laptop in the same room, but I remember we binge-watched a 3 part series following the BMW Mini factory 'live'. He didn't seem any worse and he didn't seem any better. For the first time in 25 years of marriage, he went to bed before mum came home, so we know he was feeling pretty rough though he'd never admit it.

The night went on as normal. Next thing, mum steps in my room in the morning as I'm rolling over. She's on the phone and all I hear is her giving our address to someone and the word ambulance - I mouthed the word 'dad' to her to which she nodded and I ran downstairs - amazingly the ambulance was already backing up onto the drive before I reached the living room where dad was. 

The ambulance staff - and I don't blame them in any way unlike my mother - were unsure as to wether there was something odd with the ECG and it was heart related or pneumonia to which it would be chest. I live in Leeds so we're pretty lucky to have to specialist hospitals to chose from. They eventually got him into the ambulance while I was packing an overnight bag for him and left to run for the next train, as mum rode with them. 

She had told me to go round the shops and get some comfy pyjamas for dad since it was obvious he'd be there overnight - neither of us realised it was Sunday and everything doesn't open till 11am-ish. After I wasted that time I got and Uber to the hospital and found mum in the relatives room - they hadn't told her anything new by this point. 

Finally, the matron comes in to say it's looking like pneumonia and he's being worked on. 20 min later, she is back to say his heart has stopped but they're trying hard to get it going. At this point I call my brother and step sister to tell them they need to come. She comes back in, his heart is going again but they're not sure what's going on. They've brought in consultants from 'upstairs'. She comes back to say his heart has stopped, and even if they get it back, there is significant damage. Each time she has come, I've phoned my brother and sister and consoled mum. I've also phoned her cousin to come and help me. Finally she comes back - this time with a consultant so I could tell it was over. I didn't however expect him to use the wrong surname - luckily the nurse corrected him. The rest of the day was spent at the hospital waiting for my brother and sister to make the journey and say goodbye. I did this goodbye part with mum - I did t want her going in on her own but I was desperate not to go myself.. I wish to this day I didn't. 

4 weeks later we found out the cause was Meningitis which brought on septecimia - meningococcal septecimia apparently. Another two weeks and we finally had the funeral.

I received mitigation for two assignments I was working on at the time, but found it too easy to dive back into work - something I realise now was a mistake.

As for counselling, mum is totally against the idea and doesn't understand how people can speak to strangers about personal stuff. I guess I see where she's coming from. 

Im coming to the end of my placement now and can't imagine how summer will be - I think the only thing that has kept me going is being away from home for 9 hours a day. I dunno! 

Again, not entirely sure what I was hoping to get out of this post and please don't feel obliged to reply, it's just me spilling my thoughts :-)

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Add on:

I realised why I was providing you with details now! You can probably link the two and see where mum is coming from when she questions me as to how dad was the night before, and asks if I thought about phoning 111 that night etc.

She now has an appointment with the consultant of A&E and the head nurse/whagver the job title is. I've told her I'll go if nobody else will with her but otherwise I'd rather not. I got through this most days - I don't need a professional telling me if I'd phoned 111 this would t have happened. 

Christ knows what will happen when someone tells mum that. I've almost lost it with her multiple times already but retained composure - if she pushes me along that route then I'm worried I'll say something I regret.

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@GlopieoThank you for sharing your story.  I hope you did not feel pressured to share it.  That was far from my intention. 

But quite honestly, from everything that you said, I think it was impossible for you to have predicted such a grave outcome and I'm 100% positive if you had any inclination that your father was in danger, you would do absolutely everything in your power to get him help.  You have to believe this is not your fault and even *if* you had called emergencies, there is no guarantee it would have made a difference.  The sad truth is hospitals cannot guarantee they can save your life.  It sounds like your father's symptoms escalated pretty quickly.  The human body is a unique complex machine and very often, it's hard to know if something is serious or not because the symptoms are often the same for a variety of illnesses.

As for your mother, it's clear she's in very deep pain and she's still in many stages of grief.  Understandably, she's desperately trying to make sense of such a great and unexpected sudden loss, and she's going to grasp to "if only"s.  If only she had done this.  If only you had done that.  It's her way to process the grief.  However, you have to realize that there was nothing you could have done.  And although I know you love your mother deeply, it's also not fair for her to question your actions.  I say this, not to demonize your mother, but to help you break free from the dysfunction.  Once you can realize what she is doing is not fair, then you can acknowledge that your mother is only human, she is hurting, and she makes mistakes (like we all do).  Her questioning your actions is NOT about you but all about her processing her grief.

From what you've shared, you are an extremely good and caring person.  You care deeply for your mother and your siblings, and you have a lot of compassion.  You have a lot on your plate, but from the sounds of it, you are resilient and this builds strong character.  You should be proud of yourself and the way you have stepped up to the plate to not only continue on with your education, but also be there for your family.  Continue doing what you are doing, stay strong but also take care of yourself.  I'm positive your father is very proud of you right now. 

Keep posting and sharing.  It often helps!

 

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