I'm sorry but I'm in a crappy mood today and have been for a few days really. There are two reasons. One being I found out last week that I have to go for further tests and possible treatment after an abnormal smear on the 8th July. I'm scared of what they might find.
The second thing and the reason I'm particularly upset today, is that today marks sixteen years since my mother died. Time doesn't quite take away the pain. It sometimes feels like it was yesterday and in some ways a lifetime ago.
Last year I saw a psychologist for stress and we talked about my relationship with both my parents. They were both highly functioning alcoholics. They worked stressful jobs and worked hard. I can see how easy it could be to end up like that. You work hard. You are stressed when you come home so you pour a drink. You do that most nights. Then a drink is a few drinks. Then it's every day. And on and on. My mum had a difficult life and I can see how it would be easy to use alcohol as a coping mechanism. I did feel very abandoned as she had that chance to stop. She couldn't or wouldn't. She was ashamed of her addiction.
Alcoholic liver failure is a nasty, nasty way to die. I nursed my mother through it for two years. It started with gastric varaces. This can happen when due to liver damage the pressure in the portal vein causes blood vessels to burst into the stomach. This can result in huge blood loss. My mum vomited so much blood! I'm surprised that she didn't die of blood loss! But no. She had surgery to relieve the pressure. She was ok for a while. Then she became jaundiced. Her skin was practically orange at the end. Then was the shaking and muscle jerks. The hardest part was when she couldn't communicate with me. She was so frustrated. Her liver could no longer remove toxins from her blood and this was damaging her brain. She eventually went into a coma.
She wasn't a bad person. I loved her dearly! Yes alcohol killed her but there were reasons behind her addiction but nobody thinks of that. Nobody sees that. I get really upset that nobody says anything about her. My family don't really talk about her much (apart from how I look like her). She was a very generous, loving intelligent woman and that's what I remember. Not the stigma. The woman she was. The mother she was.
I apologise for the length of this blog. It's more intimate than I really intended to be honest. I guess I had to get how I'm feeling off my chest.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Xxx
