The Red Mist - like anyone actually cares…

My Mum passed away yesterday - she was 86.

She’d been ill - extremely ill - with a cocktail of illnesses that would have felled an elephant. We (my sister and I) called an ambulance for her late one evening almost two weeks ago, after she started complaining of severe back pain, and you could tell it was bad. When she got to hospital, she was diagnosed with a bad urinary tract infection, and it wasn’t long before it got into her blood-stream, causing septicaemia.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, it managed to cross the cerebral membrane, causing meningitis (bacterial rather than viral - the most difficult to treat, apparently).

But that wasn’t all - she developed pneumonia and had a heart attack, too.

All this happened fairly early on. They pumped her full of some heavy duty antibiotics to fight the infections, but they didn’t seem to be working. Because she was struggling to breathe, and was obviously in considerable pain, she was sedated and put onto a ventilator in intensive care for almost a week. But, at least she was no longer in distress, which was harrowing to watch.

Miraculously, she was eventually able to breathe by herself again, so was taken off the ventilator, and returned to a general ward where, over this weekend, she even showed signs of recovery. She opened her eyes and was able to acknowledge our presence and respond to our chat to her, although she couldn’t speak.

We knew that she wasn’t out of the woods - they still hadn’t managed to get on top of all of the infections, and just before 1pm today, we got a call from the hospital, to tell us that her condition had deteriorated. We set off straight away, but by the time we got there less than half an hour later, she was already gone.

But, Jesus - what a fighter. She was always stubborn, but to see her battling against a catalogue of illnesses, any one of which on their own could have seen a much younger and healthier person off, was both distressing but inspiring. No-one could accuse her of being a quitter.

Even so, passing away peacefully, as she did today, was probably the best outcome for her. She always told us that “you’re not putting me in a home” (not that we ever intended to…). Incredibly, she not only survived a fractured pelvis, pneumonia and a heart attack in February of this year, but recovered after five weeks in hospital to regain the same level of fitness and independence (she had lived alone since my Dad died in October 2006) that she valued above almost everything else, within six weeks.

There was no prospect of such an immediate and complete recovery this time, though, and residential care seemed like the only option, if she pulled through. She’d have absolutely hated that, and we’re convinced that, had she been given the choice, she’d have chosen to go now, peacefully.

She came from a generation that took the kind of real hardship that we will never know for granted, and struggled through it intact. Her frugality and sheer bloody-mindedness, despite her relative wealth in her later years, was a constant source of frustrated amusement for her family, but it was born out of need, and old habits died hard with her.

So, good night Mum. Sleep peacefully - you’ve earned your rest. Thank you for everything you did for us, and all the sacrifices you made for us. The family has lost a real character, and you’ll certainly be missed.