Right. Here goes, this is the story of what happened to my Mum.

Mum wasn't very well for a month and a half. She kept being sick and wasn’t eating very much at all. She went into hospital the first time, and she came out exactly the same. We were a bit surprised as we thought she would be better, as they had sent her home. When I asked her what the doctor said her sickness was, she simply said vertigo [dizziness]. She went back into hospital a second time, still being sick, going hot and cold, and had low blood pressure and oxygen levels. They talked about running a couple of tests, one of which they never ran on her before sending her home a second time.

It was very obvious again from her second time home that she was still exactly the same as she went in, and nothing had been solved. In fact she appeared to be worsening. We called an ambulance for her a third time (on a Saturday), and they seemed pretty surprised we did that instead of waiting and calling the doctor’s surgery on Monday. My dad said to them it isn’t right her being the way she was, and they did actually take her back to hospital under great reluctance.

The third time she was there, she was transferred to the Acute Care Ward, where she was asleep most of the time we saw her. She was on fluids and antibiotics at this point because they thought she had an infection but could not find where it was coming from. She was transferred to another ward.

My brother and I visited her twice a day, every day, and she seemed to be in very different states every time we saw her. She was either asleep, unable to talk, screaming and swearing at everyone, very confused. Some days she wouldn't even speak to me because she was convinced I was not her daughter. It was heartbreaking. I arranged to meet up with her consultant doctor, to see exactly what was going on. They didn't know. What they did know was an infection was raging somewhere in Mum, but they could not work out where it was coming from. They thought it might be in her heart valves that she had replaced 8 years before, but they would need to do a test with a camera going down to have a look to confirm this, and to decide which antibiotic to combat it with, but it would only be conducted if the cardiac team, decided if she was well enough to undergo this procedure.

This test was talked about the second time she was in hospital, when she was in a much fitter state to what she had deteriorated to, and it was not done. This is something that we are now questioning. The cardiac team, came back with a “No, she was not fit enough to have the procedure done, so now the only option was to 'blindly' treat the infection for 6 weeks, and to go from there.” This was a Tuesday we spoke to the consultant who gave us that information.

My Mum spoke once that week and you could barely understand her. She had silent tears rolling down her face. It was devastating. That was the last time I saw her awake. She was asleep for the rest of that week. I had gone every day, twice a day since she had been in there, and it was so traumatizing to see her like that. Some days she would be asleep but making an awful pained noise. It was heartbreaking. So Friday night I had an invitation from my friend to go over and have a chat and some wine. I thought I could use a chat and give myself a break for the night. It was at my friends I received a phone call from my brother.

 

Read More About Valerie's Story