That evening me and Dave went to my sisters house. My nephew was upstairs peacefully lying on the bed. My mother greeted us at the door and told me to go up and see him. I didn't want to, up until that moment i hadn't cried i was in shock, all though we kind of knew i said to myself it wouldn't happen. this kind of thing never happens to you it is always someone else. My mum had to practically drag me up the stairs. i can remember being nervous, i didn't know hat to say to my sister, and i felt sick. i walked into the room and it was cold. It was quiet, my sister had "Come Away With Me" by Norah Jones on in the background. I saw him lying there and i broke down. It turned out, I was worried about what to say yet i didn't need to say anything. I held her hand and just cried. She looked, well I can't even explain how she looked. I sat there for a while just crying i couldn't hold it in. I couldn't believe it, i had never seen anyone dead before. It was horrible and that is the lasting image of have of my beautiful nephew. I didn't want to go up i felt i was forced and not allowed to deal with it in my own way. Later i went and sat outside lit a cigarette and talked to my dad. He told me that the funeral undertaker, what ever they are called, would be there to take him away soon. He warned me that it would be the worst moment and it was. My dad has never shown his feelings much he gets shy, but he seemed different. They turned up to take him. We all stood out side and my sister was supposed to bring him down. we all stood out the front of the house and heard her screaming from the bedroom, she didnt want him to go, she screamed and begged, her then, husband. We all burst into tears. And then Kev(My sisters husband) appeared in the door way and the man place his body covered up on a stretcher type thing and tied him too it in front of us all. It was so insensitive my sister completely broke down crying and falling to the ground it was the worst moment of my life. They put him in the back of the car and didn't secure him.
I can't remember much of that night after that. Or much of the following days. I had to buy something for the funeral. My parents stayed at my sisters and so did my younger sisters for the next week. Me and Dave stayed at my parents house we couldn't face going back to that hotel. For the next few days before the funeral me and Dave were practically forgotten about. My parents took my sisters on a nice day out shopping an then phoned me and told me all about the nice "FAMILY" day they had together, i had never felt more alone or more of a black sheep. I felt selfish for being upset over it, but it confirmed what i thought already, i wasn't really apart of this family. There I was with my 1 week old baby and no one wanted to spend time with him, some of my family had basically forgotten him and i felt for him so much.
The funeral came and i thought the worst moment of my life and been and gone.....Oh how wrong i was.
The service was so touching and the music was heartbreaking. Lenny Kravitz "calling all angels" and Norah Jones "The long day is over" and "Come away with me" During "calling all angels" we had a silent time and i couldn't stop the tears. That is when my younger sister who hates me, held my hand and didn't let go until the service ended.
We all went out side for the burial. All of the aunties and uncles and grandparents held a balloon and let it go when the casket was lowered into the ground, it was awful.
The wake is a blur to me, all but one moment. My younger sister (who always makes me feel like I am 5 years old) said, we should forget the past and start a fresh, be like sisters again.
I was so happy. The next few days brought good luck, we finally got a house, a house equipped for a person with disabilities. It has a through floor lift, which goes from my bedroom to the living room and visa versa, through the floor. It was fantastic news. Before i knew it we were moving in. It needed alot of work but i didn't care it was our home. A home we had wanted 20 months for, they finally gave in thanks to my annoying them with letters phone calls complaints, i think they just wanted to shut me up. It worked.
The next few months were great as me and my sisters started to bond again. I started to think about my future, i was 20 i had never had a proper job. Worked as a waitress cash in hand work, part time etc but nothing real. I left school got married became a housewife and then a mother so i didn't work and then i became ill. I went for a few interviews but nothing came of them. Of course they didn't say we are not giving you the job because you are disabled, but i knew deep down that was the reason. I can't commit to a job as each day is unpredictable i never know if it is going to be a good day or a bad day, i will have a lot of time off for that and for hospital appointments that i have weekly.
I made a decision to get a business degree, a fashion design degree and a dress making diploma and start my own business. I have always wanted to be a designer i love fashion. So i did i enrolled and started training. I created my own label and a business plan.
Sadly as the months went on the friendship with my sisters began to drift again, they are so close to one another as they have so much in common. I am so different to them i have a different take on things and if you don't see things their way then it is wrong. I accept that not everyone sees things as i do but they are not like that. Me and my little sister had a huge argument and she accused me of making up that i was ill and said i should not moan about it as my older sister has worse things happen to her i should shut up and get a job.
I was heart broken my sisters didn't believe me or care about what i have to go through. Even now thinking about what she said to me has really upset me.
She can be so hurtful, to so many people and doesn't really care.
A few more months past and I became pregnant again. I really wanted a girl. It was a boy and i wouldn't change it for the world. Through out my pregnancy i had many problems due to my illness and was in hospital for much of the time, during that the only person who visited me was Dave, My older sister didn't even call me and my younger sister left a message on my bedside phone telling me she had a yoga class and she had already paid £2.00 for it so she couldn't miss it and that was it no one else even bothered.
I cried most of the time and when Dave had to leave at the end of visiting time i cried myself to sleep every night.
I eventually went home. Months later i went into labour at 2am. I didn't have much pain relief, used the gas and air towards the end, and i had baby Daniel he was very small but healthy. I had an infection after the birth in my womb but went home the same day.
I spent the next few days getting to know my beautiful new baby boy.
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Before the diagnosis of colitis, i had started to get back ache which was played down my doctors. I couldn't really explain it. It was horrible. Started at the lower back and gradually over the next few months moved into the whole back and spine and knees. i didn't realise how bad it was until my birthday 2004,I was 20 and my parents took me to Ikea to buy things for the new home i was never gonna get. I walked around the whole place and by the end i was in a lot of pain and really stiff. Of course my family didn't believe me or really care all that much. I finally decided to admit i couldn't cope alone anymore. My husband gave up his job immediately and began to look after me and our little boy. I then became pregnant with my second baby, after the termination we were over the moon. The pregnancy was very difficult. I was very sick with morning sickness and although i had a small bump cuz he was too small, the extra weight was very hard on my joints.
about march 2005 i was 5 months gone and Dave's mum finally agreed to evict us (like i had asked her to when we moved in) it would help us be housed or so i thought. They told us they would put us in a B&B for upto 6 weeks as they couldn't keep us there longer than that as it is against the law, if we had no home at the end of 6 weeks we will be put in a hostel. So we went to the hotel it was horrible. a double bed and a single bed for same in the same room that was it. And in the middle of the city we didn't know and none of us could drive. Again my parents didnt offer any help, they said we could go to their house for dinner etc everyday, we did and we had to pay, they never picked us up we had to catch a bus. I was pregnant and could walk far due to the arthritis and we had Sam too. the bus stop was almost a mile away from the B&B and was on it we had to travel for about an hour and then walk to parents. That is when i started to use a wheelchair, getting a wheel chair and a child on and off a bus 4 times a day was awful, they didn't have disabled friendly buses then. Still no offer to pick us up. we had to spend a fortune on bus fares, i offered to pay my parents petrol money to pick us up everyday they didn't work or anything as my dad is disabled too ( a totally different disease to me though) but they said no basically.
We ended up being in the B&B not for 6 weeks.....but for 4 whole months. Then they said they wouldn't help us again as it was our fault we had been evicted from Daves' mothers. I was disgusted, I wrote to Tony Blair and everything, papers, local MP's, Ombudsman and no one would help. In the end i just wanted to give up. Towards the end of the pregnancy i was informed my an IBD group that Arthritis is related to bowel diseases. I read the symptoms and knew. I had this. I called my GP or is fantastic and she order blood tests etc straight away. Unfortunately as i was pregnant nothing much could be done until after the baby was born.
As Samuel (my first) was 10 days late everyone was telling me, "if the first one is late, they'll all be late" so when i had alot of pain a week before my 2nd was due i didn't think much of it. I was up most of the night taking my medication and i thought it was just the pain from the arthritis. I was drifting in and out of sleep. about 7 am i woke and i was in agony, i went for a shower to help my back and felt the need to push. i got Dave and told him to call an ambulance i was in agony and i thought something was wrong with the baby. After a few mix ups the paramedic arrived and luckily we were 2 minutes from the hospital. As soon as i got there i had him, Oliver 7lb 2oz. I had gone through the whole labour with no pain relief as i thought it was just my normal back pain. They couldn't believe it.
I didn't want to take my new baby back to that awful hotel so my mum said we could stay for a few days (kind hey). That first night my sisters little boy was taken to hospital again as he had Leighs which is a metabolic disorder he was very ill and we knew he wouldn't last the winter to come as she had just been told. He had a cold but it made him really ill they said he would be home by the weekend. The next morning my mum and dad went to see my nephew in hospital and stayed there all day, i was in alot of pain and had just given birth and they didn't realise that i needed them too, Well i think they probably did but my sister is always more important. I came out of the hospital the same day i had our new baby boy Oliver. as i did with Sam. So i needed to see my GP that morning so she could check me and Oliver. My parents forgot,and Daves' mum was going to do it but then her and her partner had a problem with the car and couldn't do it either. When they finally arrived home(my parents) they didn't even ask me how i was or say thank you for all the house work i had done for them. I just felt like they didn't want us to stay there really. That night about midnight we had a call to say my nephew was really ill and they thought he wouldn't make the next few days. In the morning about 5am the nurse called and said it will be soon when he passes away and my sister wanted my mum and dad and me and my other sister there. I had just had Oliver 2 days ago and i had to leave him with my auntie. My breast milk was coming in that day and i couldn't breast feed due to the meds i was on but i had a breast pump just to relieve it abit as it is painful. Oliver's first midwife appointment was also that day and i missed that. I was supposed to have an Anti d injection as i have rare blood type and Oliver doesn't. You must have it within 72 hours of having the baby and the GP's Secretary wasn't very nice to me at all. We went to the hospital and it was awful. My nephew was so so so ill. We were all there, my sister decided she wanted him at home and they hospital arranged for nurse to be there with us all. she worked for the Diana Nurses (a charity set up by Princess Diana) The nurse was fab. We stayed there all day and everyone else slept there. when we left he, my nephew was laughing i kissed him and told him i loved him and Dave was playing games with him making him laugh as he always did. Little did i know that would be the last time i would see him alive. Me and Dave stayed at mum and dads alone. He survived the night but the next morning they said it would be his last day. No one would pick us up so we could go over there and be with him and all the family, people who weren't even as close to him as me and Dave were there and we weren't. They kept calling to let us know how he was, they gave him something to help him go peacefully he was in no pain.
then we got the call....He had died.
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Posted on 5/3/2008
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Hi to everyone and anyone....This is my diary, I want to start by introducing myself to...well just about anyone who is reading this.
My name is Peggy Jane and i live in a tiny village called Dunton Bassett in the middle of England, Great Britain. I am 23 and have lived such a full life for someone so young. Over this side of the atlantic we grow up much faster, and that is not exactly a good thing. We have alot of kids dropping out of school and not gettng jobs etc. I left school after my GCSE's, and to be honest i am surprised i lasted that long because.....well maybe i shouls just start at the beginning!
When i was five years old i went to a catholic school in a place called Atherstone. The kids there were all quite poor and we arrived, we had just bought a brand new house in the posh area. it was the only catholic school in the area. i never did make friends easily, as i am shy and i hated being away from my mum and my home. Let's just say i started to get bullied from day one. They would out my P.E. kit in the toliet and my lunch in the bin, they would attack me physically and it would go unnoticed by the teachers etc. One day my Mum came to help in my class and caught a group of girls kicking and hitting me, with a dinner lady standing by doing nothing. My mum was really upset,but still nothig was done about these bullies. The ring leader, Kelly would tell me to do naughty things and then she would be my friend. One day she told me to steal some sweets from an older girls coat pocket in the cloak room.... i did and i got caught and I took the blame. It got really bad and even the parents would join in, I had won a prize in my gymnastics class and i had beaten one the girls who had bullied me Samantha. I was really excited to show my mum. Samanthas' mum got there before mine and she told her mum that i had beaten her, then her mother walked up to me and said , " You know what, you're a bitch!" To a five year old, as i was at the time, it was really upsetting. I told my mum and she couldn't believe it.
Moving on a little it got worse, with parents being horrible to me all the time so my mum stood up to them and said, " right this is stupid, we should be sorting this not joining in. It's Peggy's birthday next week and she is having a party all the class is invited. let's stop this." They all agreed and mum made everything really special for my 6th birthday party. All the food was ready, the cake, the games. I was so excited. It got to six o clock and I had butterflies, "Everyone will be arriving any minute." I thought. Seven o clock came no oe had arrived, eight,and nine o clock came and still no one had turned up. My mum didn't know how to tell me, her six year old little girl, that no one was coming. Luckily a few weeks later i badly broke my arm and i had to have time off school. Then we had to move so i never had to go back to that school. It wasn't my first school. I have moved around alot. Never found anywhere to be what you call "home" i have never felt like i fit in really. Then there were other schools other bullies. I finally got to leave school and i couldn't wait. But in my final year at school (year 11 of Grammar school) i met my, now husband Dave. Well to be honest we had known of each other for years i had lived 3 doors away from 1992-1997 (when a supermarket call Safeway bought our home and knocked it down) I then moved to a village just outside of Lutterworth, but i still went to school there. My husband chased after me to ask my name. That was Tuesday 27th June 2000 and the next few days we kept bumping itno eachother and by the Sunday he had asked me out. we became quickly inseperable and spent every minute together he had toldme he love me from day one and he couldn't to marry me. I left school and was in at a college but i left it to get married to my child hood sweetheart ( who had helped me up after falling over and cutting my knee in primary school when i was 6) cute or what? He proposed after asking for permission from my father, on January 13 th 2001. After a few months we set the date for April 27th 2002 and we couldn't wait. We starting booking things and i found my perfect wedding dress.
When it came to christmas 2001 my mum said we would start the major planning after christmas and was so excited. Then one night i was sleeping at Dave's (i was 16 when he proposed and 17 when i got married) my eldest sister phoned me to ask if i would mind if she got married in March less than a month before mine. Well she always got herown way and she knew i wouldn't say "well actually i do mind" The annoying thing is she isn't even with that man any more he didn't really wana marry her,(well thats a whole other story) so the planning for my wedding that was supposed to start after christmas got put on hold because her wedding was first. Obviously my parents were paying for them both so i had to cut back and cancel things for mine so they had enough money to pay for hers. she gave them less than 2 months to pay and plan for her wedding and we had given them over a year and we put money to it also. I had chosen my music for the wedding and when she had the same music at hers without telling me I could have killed her, but as always i said nothing like evryone else, they just let her get away with it.
We got married to everyone elses rules we didnt get a say it became like a war between our mothers. But it was still the best day ever because i love him so much and he loves me. we are best friends and yes still married, we just had our 6th wedding anniversary.
We moved into a new house just built and settled down. We then had our first child just before i was 18. Samuel. Dave did the night feeds as well as working so hard. We had alot of money problems due to a family member stealing. We had to leave that house and we had no where to go. I am very proud especially when it comes to money so i told no one how much we struggled. I wrote a letter to my parents asking if we could live with them for a while, so we could save up. I didnt tell them we had actually been served an evition notice. They came over the next day and basically said no. my younger sister (who really hated me) was living there and her boyfriend was in my old room. They said "if you were being evicted it would be different story." I couldn't hold it in anymore. Tears streamed down my face and i said "we are. Weare being evicted."I showed them the notice but i had called their bluff. They didnt let us saty there because of my sisters boyfriend they chose him over us and we had no one else to go. Long story short we ended up at Dave's mothers which was nightmare, it is so dirty and messy i couldn't believe it. Me and Dave had a thin bit of sponge to sleep on dowstairs and Sam slept in a room with one Daves brothers 19, and above his cot was a huge hole in the celing. It was just awful. The council said it is our own fault, and wouldn't help. I fought with them for 18 months.
Just before we were evicted i became ill. I had a few problems with bleeding from the bowel so i had tests and they couldn't find anything. It got worse and i became pregnant. They advised me to have a termination, I was devasted and so was Dave. I told my mum, i needed her. I got the courage and told her, she went mental and my big sister came in and had ago at me too. My mum forced me to tell my dad in front of everyone. I went home(Dave's mums was home then) i cried all night i couldnt believe they were not here for me, Dave was. Even now as i am writing this tears fill my eyes because it was the worst experienece and I had no support at all. (another incident happened tome at 15 before i met Dave and he is the only one who knows i didnt tell my family and now i am glad i didnt) My mum and dad went on holiday and me and dave faced another hard time alone.
After that i had more tests and i was told I had Ulcerative Colitis.
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Posted on 5/2/2008
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