It’S Just a Nosebleed: My Long Journey

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© 2013 by Frances Moult. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/14/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0414-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0415-5 (e)

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE BOOK

CHAPTER 1

It’s 4 a.m. on a January morning. It’s very dark outside and very cold. I’m in a bed on a hospital ward writing in the dark and thinking about my journey over the last three years through the ups and downs of life as a staff nurse, mother, grandmother, and patient. Although I can’t really see what I’m writing, but I feel it inside.

It started in January 2009; a lot happened, what a bad start to the year. One of my dear friends was found dead in her chair on a Monday morning. She had suffered from lung cancer, but only for a few months—so quickly, so little time. On the Saturday before she died, she rang me and asked me to bring the kids over" she said. Meaning my youngest son and my two grandchildren. She had looked after them when they were small. Yes even my son who was 20 years old by this time. We were also at the same school, although she was in the year ahead of me, so we go a long way back.

I accepted the invitation, and on the next day, we all went to visit her. I was quite shocked to see her sitting with oxygen beside her.; she had not needed oxygen before; this development happened quickly. We chatted and laughed as we watched my granddaughters play; she had bought them each a present. She then decided to have a cigarette, and her son literally flew across the room.

Mum, you can’t have one!

Yes I can, she replied, giving me a mischievous grin. As she pulled out a cigarette, her son rushed to remove her mask and turned off the oxygen before she blew us all up.

A little later, we finished our drinks, and it was time for my family to leave, as my friend looked very tired. As I hugged her goodbye, she whispered to me. I have always and will always love you.

I love you too, I said. I didn’t think too much of those words, as we had said them before.

The next morning, I went to work as usual, and at 9 a.m., I received a call from my friend’s son: my friend was gone. I sat in the staff room and just cried. The nursing staff were all there with me, understanding how I felt about the loss of such a dear person. I left my car at work as one of my colleagues then took me home, as I was not in a good place or in the right frame of mind to drive. My hubby went and picked up my car later with my son in law.

My friend’s death was very tragic. She was so shocked at her cancer diagnosis that she had lost her footing on the stairs in the hospital and ended up breaking her hip, so she could do nothing about the cancer until they fixed her hip.

I attended her funeral saying goodbye to my lovely friend along with a lot of people; as she was very well loved and would be sorely missed. I kissed a red rose and laid it on her coffin as she was lowered into the ground. My heart ached for her and her caring, loving husband and son.

On Mother’s Day the same year, my poor dog Cleo had collapsed. She was seventeen. I had come downstairs in the morning half asleep and there she was lying by the front door like a fur rug, with all her limbs stretched out. I called to my husband, and he came running down the stairs, she was still alive, and my husband and I sat with her and hugged her for a while, and then we took her to the vet’s.

The vet determined that my dog had had a stroke but that we should give her a chance to recover as she had never been ill in her life. My husband and I were in full agreement with that. The vet gave her an injection, and we took her home. It was so sad to watch her—she swung her head side to side, she became incontinent, and just looked so ragged. We had to coax her to eat. She had been with my family since my son was about four years old, so even though he was now a young man he cried as he watched her.

One morning after my dog came home; she sat beside me and just looked at me as if to say, Please, I’ve had enough. Her eyes looked so sad. My family determined we should put Cleo to sleep. We took her for a walk before getting her in the car, and she seemed to perk up, which made me wonder if we were doing the right thing going back to the vets. But ten minutes later, she drooped again,. It was a Sunday, and we had difficulty finding a vet whose office was open, but we finally found one with very kind staff members. When we arrived, the staff took us into the clinic. My husband and I stayed with her as she was put to sleep. It was heartbreaking, and I cried. I’m so sorry darling, I said, remembering her as a pup, the runt of the litter, tiny enough to carry in my pocket. Before she came to live with us, I didn’t want a dog in the house again, but then, on a visit to a friend her dog had had pups, this runt climbed up on my lap, and that was it. I took her home. What a loyal pet she was, full of mischief and love.

Then, in April that year, my daughter, who was only twenty-four, became ill due to a growth in the right side of the main artery of the brain. All that went through my mind in the months following was that I was going to lose her. I went to see her each day after work, spending all my time either working or with her.

When a consultant came to see her, I asked him questions, and he answered a few, and then he said that he needed to operate to find out exactly what was in my daughter’s brain, as scans showed a mass around the artery that the consultant believed was non-cancerous but could still be dangerous. We sat in the hospital’s day room for several hours while surgeons performed a craniotomy. No one came to see if we wanted tea or to tell us my daughter was in recovery—the staff said nothing, leaving me to worry, and I felt an unbelievable resentment for the staff’s lack of care. I understood that the doctors and nurses caring for my daughter looked after a very busy ward, and worked long hours, but as a nurse, I expected them to provide more help for worried relatives, as is my usual practice. Perhaps I was being unfair to think like that. But that’s the way I felt at that time, who knows?

My worry over my child’s condition superseded all other thoughts, and my mind was in turmoil. Finally, after so many hours, of sitting I sought out a nurse, and she told me my daughter was on her way back to the ward. A bit later, I went to see my daughter, and she was wide awake.

I want a cigarette, she said. We laughed, and I was relieved that she seemed fine.

You’ll have to wait, baby, I told her. You have only just got back from the operating theatre.

She glared at me, got out of bed, and put on her dressing grown. Are you coming? she said.

We had to laugh again. This was my feisty girl. We all went with her outside for a cigarette.

In the days after my daughter’s operation, she phoned me several times, crying in pain. One morning she rang and told me she was sitting on the kerb by the outpatients’ department. She was in a lot of pain, and I told her to get pain relief, but she said the nurses had told her to wait for it because they were too busy. I was very upset and angry by then, so I phoned the ward to ask how she was. The nurse said my daughter was fine. So I asked.

If that’s correct, I said, why is she sitting outside the front entrance crying in pain?

The nurse had no answer for me because, as she then explained that, the staff didn’t realise my daughter was not on the ward. I then rang my sister-in-law, and she dropped everything and flew to the hospital. She helped get my daughter treatment for her pain. What a treasure my sister-in-law is.

My daughter was diagnosed with Tolosa-Hunt syndrome, a neurological illness. I’ve read that the exact cause is not known but that the disorder is thought to be associated with inflammation of the areas behind the eyes. To treat my daughter’s condition, her doctor prescribed a few bouts of chemotherapy, although sometimes she was unable to undergo the treatment because her blood tests were too abnormal. The chemo made my daughter so sick. She went quite blind in one eye and on occasion wore an eye patch for protection. She was also prescribed steroids which made her weight balloon, making her very angry. I don’t blame her for her anger and frustration with what she was going through. My heart was heavy, as I didn’t know how to give her any comfort, as she would push me and other carers away.

When my daughter came home from hospital, I would hear her screaming in the night with the pain in her head. God help her, I thought. I’m a staff nurse, and I’m useless; I can’t even help my