At the end, only love remained.

November 7, 2013June 25, 2014 raphaela991 Comment

My friend lost her husband on the weekend. She shared the journey through words and images. Theirs was a penultimate love story. At the end, only love remained. I know that it does. I almost died three and a half years ago. I was in hospital, after endometriosis surgery.

I had awoken from the operation, and was back on the ward. Hubby and my daughter had just left to allow me rest. In a heartbeat, things changed. That is how everything changes. Suddenly, dramatically. I felt I was going to be sick, and the room spun as I stood. I collapsed onto the floor, and managed a weak call out for help. My nurse took my blood pressure, which was 55/30 and dropping. I had a temperature, and was shaking. She ran from the room, and I could hear her screaming for help. I was immediately started on blood plasma, and bloods were taken. Doctors ran in shortly after, saying I had very little haemoglobin left. My tummy was beet-red, and they could see my blood pooling. I felt I could easily slip away. I wasnt afraid. All the nonsense one worries about was discarded. I felt more “me” than I had felt in a long time. I felt sadness at what I would be leaving behind, my family, my friends, seeing my little girl grow up. All the things left unfinished. I vowed to refine my life, and all that I was called to do, if I survived. Let go of all the detritus. I was watching all the frantic activity, unconcerned. I focused on all I had been blessed with in this scenario. Staff who were on the ball, blood donors, and the Red Cross driver who came quickly, the fact my daughter wasnt here… My blood pressure went up a little with the transfusion, then dropped again. My heart beat was tachy, and my breathing very laboured.

The surgeon was called and he told me scar tissue and endo was found on the tubes to my kidneys, all along right side of pelvis, and had stuck my ureter to the front of my pelvis. Veins were covered too, and he had to do a lot of vascular work, severing two of the main nerves running into my pelvis from my lower back. It caused a lot of bleeding which they thought they had stemmed. The description of how I was ovulating healthily and the egg they found enthralled me, yet broke my heart. I have been focused on having my own family since I was eighteen. I wanted a sibling for my daughter. They had to stabilize me so I would have a chance at surviving more surgery. My focus had to swing from fertility to surviving. The surgeon’s registrar, an Irish lady, ran in after I took another turn for the worst, and warned me that they may need to do a hysterectomy to save my life. She held my hand as she said it. She said this could very well prove fatal. I prayed some more (husband and daughter had arrived, and it was now Thursday morning).

My daughter was allowed to cuddle me on the trolley on the way to theatre. My little three year old held her mummy tight, with the encouragement of the staff. I breathed in the vanilla of the soap we bathed her in, felt the softness of her hair against my face. She stroked my face and kept kissing my cheek. “I love you mummy, I love you.” I had birthed a numinous creature. If I did nothing else, I had done that. Staff were marvelling as to how I was coping with the pain and the severity of it all. “I have birthed a numinous creature,” I wanted to say in reply. When I woke, I was on a morphine pump in ICU. The surgeon told my husband I had haemorraged along the pelvic wall. I lost all my blood. I hadn’t needed a hysterectomy, which was a sure bet for the staff! After the first wave of pain- when I collapsed to the floor- there was just love. Love for the husband who had undiagnosed bipolar, and gratitude that I had survived what should have been a fatal fall at fifteen. Love for the little girl that stroked her dying mother’s hair, and held me all the way to surgery. It is good to remember this 48 hours. To appreciate life anew. Discard the nonsense once again. Seeing my friend carry herself and her husband to the threshold of death has been humbling. Such dignity and grace. At the end, only love remained. I am going to try and live that way each day.

Fear of Anger.

November 6, 2013June 25, 2014 raphaela99Leave a comment

I have learnt an important lesson, regarding the power of my mind. It excels at terrifying me, leading me to envisage catastrophic explosions. A teacher had invited my daughter and myself along to a festival, to take part in a parade. We would be walking with the Scottish group. I used to do Scottish dancing, and my husband and I both have Scottish heritage (our clans were mortal enemies). This teacher is incredibly passionate and creative. I gasped when I saw her classroom. Every available space-including the ceiling,was taken up with art. Colour and shape, movement and whimsy. Recently, floor space had been taken over by costumes.

She had borrowed quite a few from celebrated dancers, and the kilts were valued in the thousands. I went for a fitting for my wench outfit weeks ago, at the same time my daughter was fitted for her dancer outfit. I lovingly put my dress up and got on with life. Several nights ago, I sat bolt upright with a horrible thought. Where was my daughter’s outfit? Where the bloody hell did I put it? Mine was staring at me, but I couldn’t for the life of me recall where hers was. Oh my God! Catastrophe! My daughter wouldn’t be able to march. Everyone would be bitterly disappointed in me, and the worst part? They would be angry. I was awake throughout the night, worried that I would incur wrath the next morning. I couldn’t find my daughter’s outfit anywhere. I went into school after having turned out every bag I own, every wardrobe and drawer. My friend greeted me and reminded me that the kid’s outfits were ready to be picked up. You mean to say, I didn’t take it home with me? I could have kissed her! All that panic, for nothing. I am a confident and capable adult, but when I am faced with confrontation, and possibly anger, I become a child. I was never allowed to be angry, and if I disappointed anyone as a little girl, their rage didn’t bear thinking about. It’s exhausting trying to make everyone happy, tiptoeing around danger, afraid of letting anyone down. I still have work to do. There are parts of my psyche that need to be gathered and strengthened. I learnt that the adult needs to reassure this kid, and find solutions. She retreated. The threat of anger was just too much. Healing is like an onion, and you peel back one layer, to be presented with many more. It was a wonderful parade.

Time slipping away.

October 29, 2013June 26, 2014 raphaela99Leave a comment

Oh crap! It’s almost the start of November, and November leads into… Freaking out! I can feel my heart racing. I need to flesh out the three books I want to complete in 2014. I need to do a lot before school breaks up for the year. The days and weeks are rushing by. You know when you are paralysed with panic, can’t think straight and don’t end up accomplishing much? Yeah that. I refuse to go into December feeling ill-prepared, bad-tempered and exhausted. Instead of sitting in my office, accomplishing little, I took up my camera. This is what I captured.

Outside table where we sit with friends.

Our yard.

Our Guinea Pigs.

More Guinea Pig beauty.

Tree of Life.

Portrait a young friend did of my daughter.

I picked this up at a Lifeline store for $6.00

Heart painting my child did in art class.

Santa! Yay!

The birdy gang (or some of them).

How extraordinary to have appreciated so much glory within five minutes! Makes you wonder why we don’t all stop and marvel at what and whom is in our world much more than we do. You know what, the end of the year skulks up on us, and its okay. We can carry projects and dreams into the new year. All we need do now is breathe, and capture some images to appreciate on the way.

A week.

October 23, 2013June 26, 2014 raphaela99Leave a comment

What a week it was! I did the presentation for new investigator’s. Suffered from the palpable relief of having done so, not to mention the memories that were stirred. The day before, I went into the laundry to do some washing. I peered up at the branches (yes, we have branches in our laundry), over the bird’s homes on the wooden bench, and counted five little birds. One was missing, Rosie the budgie. I turned around, and saw her on the ground, in the corner. Her eyes were closed. It was a shock. You never really believe that a beloved pet will die, even one’s of advanced age. Her partner, Cuddles, tweeted for her, longed for her. All the birds ended up in the office with me that day, needing to be close. It was a loss as real as any I have known. Final and unexpected. The day before the presentation. I couldn’t cry. Friday, I spent the day inside, and the tears came. Relief that the speech had been done and grief that my little bird had flown away.

Saturday, we had our school fete, a distraction of which I was grateful. Something else to concentrate on. It was a full day, a steamy hot event with lots to do. I was on baskets. I have always loved basket stalls, and my purchase of kind is the stuff of legend. A dear fellow at a school was appalled two years ago, seeing me lugging a mammoth box home around the corner, so he insisted on carrying them for me. There is something about the act of clustering similar trinkets together and wrapping them, finishing with a flourish of bows and curls. I have to say, after dealing with hundreds of them, I am a bit over it now.

The past two days, I have been unable to breathe properly. I know it has been the case for many. Too much smoke and not enough oxygen. Worries for loved ones caught in high-risk areas, worry for the volunteers. An unexpected turn of events this past week. Little bird’s hearts suddenly ceasing, bushfires breaking out. Extreme heat and danger. The remarkable thing is that we get through it. We continue to breathe. The tightness in our chests ease, the rains come, donations stream in. We witness astonishing acts of tenderness. We rebuild. We are all living in hope that the winds don’t live up to what is anticipated tomorrow. If the rain comes and is hard and long, we shall collectively breathe much easier.

My Fab Sign. Says it all!

October 22, 2013December 30, 2014 raphaela99Leave a comment

Don’t you love the sign I got at the school fete? I

The Body Cast and other Relic’s.

October 10, 2013June 26, 2014 raphaela99Leave a comment

It is a wondrous act, the art of rebuilding. Fractured and pulverised, like the component’s of stars. I was told there was a probability that I would never eat nor drink by myself again. That the nasogastric tube may be in place for the rest of my life. I was fifteen. I wish I had pictures of myself at that time to share with you. It was in the era before digital cameras, and nobody cared enough to keep a photographic journal of my recovery. I have snapped the relevant images within my mind. I found the white tracksuit pants I was wearing on that bitter winter’s night scrunched up in my wardrobe. They were torn, and despite having been washed, had stains from where blood and urine smattered. They were hidden in the back of my wardrobe, a shameful piece of my past. I retrieved them, and held them close. When I got dressed that winter’s night, I had no idea that I would be fighting for my life within a short while. I still have the gold bangle I was wearing. My wrist was fractured in the fall, though I barely noticed. It’s bent out of shape, having adapted to my twisted wrist. It has many scratches, from where bark chips stabbed it. I still have the Hartshill rectangle, which had been wired into my back in the first surgery, and my body cast, of which I was in for several months. I painted it. These horrid relics provide some comfort. In the absence of photos, which detail what I looked like after the fall (my face was bruised and cut, and I looked nothing like myself), these relic’s are evidence that it happened. That I survived. They are capsules confirming that it was as bad as I remember, and that I was stronger than that which tried to destroy me. I wish I had pictures of myself pre-surgery and post. Of the first time I walked again. Of myself in the body brace I wore for two years. I have my relics, and I am thankful for that.

The Fountain (part two).

September 24, 2013June 26, 2014 raphaela99Leave a comment

I had been to a church service, and the people seemed friendly. It was mother’s day, and they had given each woman a lovely pair of earrings, which someone had made by hand. It warmed my heart. I was contacted by a lay preacher, and she invited me to a morning tea at a café with the ladies. I wanted to be connected, despite it being an evangelical church, with arms raised and eyes closed. Not a scene I was familiar with. Despite only being able to mumble, having my face bandaged, bruised and stitched, I decided to go. Hubby was going to drop me off, and mind our three year old daughter. The ladies gasped at my visage as I sat down, and smiled at this fragile creature. It was as though we were from two different planets. I was given a gift of a book written by one of their members, and said my thanks as I ordered a water. My back was turned to the fountain behind. A woman shrieked, “look at that little girl! Where on earth are her parents!” I turned slowly and saw my child completely saturated, in the fountain. “The water is dirty!” someone else chimed in. Hubby was trying to coax her out, to no avail. My free-spirited child was having the time of her life. In his flustered state, he finally handed over our dripping, shivering little girl to me, and hollered over his shoulder that he was going to duck into the shops to get her fresh clothes. He disappeared, and I shrouded my child in my coat as all chatter ceased. Awkwardness reigned, as did judgement. I felt exposed, not cut out for this particular group. I surveyed the perfect talons, the coiffed hair, the diamond rings and pressed outfits. It seemed like an age until hubby returned. It was the same week that he came back from an errand to the electrical store to buy a new speaker, and came back with a flat screen television and brackets, so our daughter could watch her shows from the comfort of her bed. He took it back on my insistence. As I slowly rose, I called out a meek farewell, and went off with my two ragamuffins. I drank wine that night, knowing I would not be courted by these ladies. I thanked the fountain, knowing that it had washed me clean. Clean of the misguided notion that I didn’t belong. Three years have passed. My scars have healed, and these two ragamuffins are by my side. These women are still having their coffee meetings. I was never invited to another.

The Fountain.

September 24, 2013June 26, 2014 raphaela99Leave a comment

I love how time allows us to revisit experiences that were cringe-worthy at the time. Those bloody-awful events which made us want to curl up in a ball when they happened. Three years ago, I had plastic surgery after removal of some tumours on my face. Long story short, I had been on high doses of hormones to try and reverse the premature menopause I found myself in. We wanted to try IVF, and give our daughter a sibling. Instead, I found myself with what I thought were warts. “Great, I really am a crone now,” I thought to myself. I thought they would be frozen off, but instead, I was sent to a skin specialist, and then found myself receiving plastic surgery. I was chattering in a deep and meaningful manner, under light sedation, completely off my trolley. Not helpful when one’s surgeon is attempting to do a flap repair and remove a tumour to one’s chin. “We will need to knock this girl out,” I heard. Then, they knocked me out. Over the next few days, I couldn’t speak, as I had stitches to my chin and forehead, two black eyes and a bandaged face.

I was waiting to see if these tumours were a nasty cancer, and also whether the HRT I had bombarded my system with had worked and I would be able to do IVF again. I would find out both sets of news at two different places on the same day. Feeling as though I had absolutely no control over my life, let alone the outcomes, I became desperate. Desperate to find my place. Desperate to feel connected. What happens next is why I view fountains with fondness.

My Husband is brave.

September 18, 2013June 26, 2014 raphaela99Leave a comment

I have watched my husband struggle with a quiet dignity since his bipolar diagnosis several months ago, and I have observed a remarkable healing taking place. He rang his life insurance provider with a query in the interim, and mentioned his new diagnosis. As a result, they wont insure him until a year has passed. It was irritating to us both, of course, but more than that, it was troubling. He has to hang on for a year. If you had said that it was a possibility that he wouldn’t be around in a year, at the start of 2013, I would have sadly agreed. Today, I see a man coming back to life. He was brave for so long, from the age of twelve, when he was made to leave home by two damaged parents, and survive on his own. People break. People sometimes crack over the smaller things. The car breaking down, the rego being due, a friendship drifting. It takes one superfluous incident hauled on top of a pile of bigger issues to break a back. To break a mind. I had a woman come by, and try to coax me to leave him after his diagnosis. She gleefully reported that she knew the destructive things he had done when he went missing, as he had told her. She said he was grubby and appeared as a homeless man. She went on and on, denigrating his character, and all I know him to be. I ended my association with a heavy heart.

He is my husband, and has been so for fourteen years. He has been with me throughout my early adulthood, and has sacrificed much. He was unwell, and is doing everything in his power to keep well. When he was in the depths of illness, he couldn’t see how sick he was. How could anyone have expected him too? He is still not drinking, and takes his meds by the clock. He has tremendous regret for the pain of the past six years. We talk about it sometimes, and how it was for me. Confused, alone, and often abandoned. I am aware that he falls into depression over what is past, beating himself up over behaviour he had no control of. I am in the unique position of being able to understand what it is like to feel as though you have had a personality transplant. On and off endometriosis and IVF drugs, being in and out of chemical menopause… Feeling angrier than you have ever felt, with a despicable depression you can’t begin to describe. Knowing its not you, even though it feels like it is coming from deep inside your brain and soul. To see the sunlight again and the truth of yourself reappearing… It is early days, and we have strived to get the balance of medications right. It has been hard and scary. I get scared when he is buoyant. Is he too happy? Is it real happiness? I get scared when he becomes frustrated. Will he be able to self-soothe and calm himself? I get scared when he is late home or goes for a walk. We are both re-learning our roles in this relationship. I can own my pain and give it voice. I need to, for there was a lot of it. He is taking responsibility for his health, and I am so very proud of him. My hormones have been imbalanced and that has at times made me feel wretched. His brain chemicals were unbalanced, and he is dealing with that. Nobody can judge him more harshly than he judges himself. I thank all the wondrous people who have provided mateship and support. It has meant so much. Understanding is a gift that you give not only to the person with a mental illness, but to their whole family.

My Kid.

September 4, 2013June 26, 2014 raphaela99Leave a comment

Jet black hair and olive skin, with eyes blue as the ocean and the cutest little dimple. I knew nothing of babies when I had you. I gathered they were like koala bears and slept eighteen hours a day (I know, right?!) You did nothing of the sort, preferring slumber lasting an hour a time, and no more than six in a twenty-four hour period. Yet, I felt more energized, having you in my world. Maybe it was the years of waiting and hoping that made this tolerable. My wide-awake child. The black tendrils of hair fell out, and were replaced by honey-blonde locks. You were always full of surprises. I will never forget shrieking in fright in our kitchen when I saw you, grinning at me. I had put you to bed, and you slumbered. It was time for mummy’s cuppa, and to see you standing there-after having climbed out of your crib-grinning at me, was priceless. You were a little over nine months of age. Always in a hurry. You held a family friend’s hand at three years of age as he was near to passing from this world. Your soft little hand in his aged, limpid hand. Unscripted and treasured. A gifted artist, your paintings make my heart soar. When I listen to you practice with your singing teacher, my whole being is uplifted. That voice which starts off nervously, then gathers strength. Sweet and lyrical as a little bird. I am so proud to be your mummy. There is nothing you need to do, say or be to earn this pride, this love. One day I will let this little bird fly and be independent. I cant wait to see who you become sweetheart.