Losing people we love…

As you will know from my previous blog, Stefan & I attended Steve’s funeral on Wednesday. It was a lovely service & was so good to see my auntie Debi & cousins despite the sad & difficult circumstances.
It makes me upset and angry to think that we usually don’t see all our family unless a tragedy occurs. It got me thinking just how many times I’ve had to say prayers & premature goodbyes over the last few years to some of the most important people in my life…

I touched upon my uncle’s death in my last blog. Kevin, my mum’s youngest brother was suddenly taken away from us on 6^th February 1998. I remember the phone call as if it was yesterday, a car valeting chemical he had been using that day during work had caused an asthma attack, it lead to his lung collapsing & he passed away. I wasn’t allowed to see him, I was still quite young & my mum explained that it was a horrendous way to pass.
He was my favourite uncle, always making me laugh, he had a huge moustache that would tickle my face when he cuddled me. We used to play fight a lot & he would always wind my mum up which I found hilarious.
He was definitely the joker of the family.
He left my auntie Debi, who was pregnant with his son Ross at the time, & daughter’s Roxanne & Karly.
My Nan & Pop’s were completely torn apart at the loss of their son, it broke my heart that I couldn’t do anything to console them. Robbie Williams ’Angels’ was played at his funeral & to this day I always think about him.

My Uncle Kevin

I have twelve tattoo’s to date and three of them are memorial.
On my back below my neck, I have swirls & stars surrounding the letter K. Not for my own name, but for my little Kayleigh.
Kay had cystic fibrosis and we practically grew up together when hospital policy wasn’t like it is now with regards to cross infection.
These days, we are kept isolated, from clinic appointments to admissions on the ward. We have our own rooms to stop catching infections from other cystic suffer’s.
But back in the day when we both ruled Louisa Cary in Torbay Hospital we were on an open ward, usually just one or two beds down from one another if not right next door.
We were trouble!! She was like my little sister, we stayed up all night and entertained the nurses, compared scars & kicked ass in the school room on our favourite computer game (purely educational of course)

I was a fair few years older than Kayleigh, but we were both eventually moved to Culm ward at Exeter, where I am still seen at now.
Under the new rules of isolation, we found it extremely hard as we had been best friends, and suddenly it was against the rules to socialise.
We always munched on our favourite snacks and watched films and now we were being told we couldn’t do it?

I always knew Kayleigh was a lot poorlier than me. As I hit my late teens to early twenties & got into drinking & going out, Kayleigh was usually in hospital. It really pissed me off I couldn’t see her. We’d talk, on the phone usually and when we were both admitted we’d speak through the glass of the doors to our rooms, sounds ridiculous, but we didn’t want to get into trouble and yet couldn't ignore one another.

It was a Saturday morning, I had been admitted a few days earlier because I had a blocked bowl & Kayleigh I knew had been in for quite a while on the ward down from me.
I begged to be discharged. As I was older I hated staying in, kept thinking of all the good nights I was missing out on.. I thankfully got the go ahead and started packing my bag when my cf nurse came in, closed the door and sat on my bed.
I could tell by her face she was going to tell me something I didn’t like. She explained Kay had taken a turn for the worse, that her mum & family were by her bedside and that she wouldn’t be pulling through, that it was only a matter of days, if not hours.. My insides felt like they had been ripped out, I screamed asking if there wasn’t something they could do, but she just said they had done all they could. I was told to go home, try not to think about it (as if that would happen, that’s all you can think about?) and that she’d call me soon as anything had happened.
I cried, constantly, all the way home, crawled up the stairs, under the duvet and that’s where I stayed, crying, couldn‘t eat and couldn‘t sleep…
My phone rang, Sunday afternoon, about two thirty, it was my CF nurse. My little star had passed away, only an hour after I had left the hospital the previous day.
It was Saturday October 4^th 2003, Kayleigh was only 17. My best friend, we told each other everything, we knew exactly what the other was going through & she had gone, I just didn’t want to be alive, I felt guilty that I was still here and she wasn’t. The next few days were hell. I don’t know how, but newspapers had got hold of the fact we were such good friends and hadn’t been isolated in our early years. They started asking questions, digging for information and asking me if I thought it was the fact because we had been close beforehand, it had been me who had given her the infection that she just couldn’t fight. I was devastated, I didn’t know what to say, and for a long time I blamed myself.

She was an angel, my little star. I’m still really good friend’s with her sister’s to this day, and we often talk. I know it must be so painful for them and I wouldn’t want to wish them to have to go through anything like it again.

My little Kayleigh

My other tattoo’s are for my Nan & Pop’s. The two people in my life that I had all the time in the world for, that I loved so much I could burst. They were the best grandparents anyone could wish for and it breaks my heart to know they never met Stefan.
All they wanted was for me to find happiness, especially my Poppops (I could never say his name properly when I was little and it just stuck!) I often tell Stef that I wish they were here, they would have loved him to bits, and him them.

My Nan, suffered a brain haemorrhage and then two strokes in the years leading up to her death. My Pops became her carer after she had eighteen months in a specialist care home. Although he was unwell himself, he would do everything for her. I would call & he would be cooking her dinner or running her bath, he loved her with all his heart and I admired his strength, I knew it must have been hard work and I was concerned that he wasn’t looking after himself properly. I would often go over to visit as much as I could.

I was in complete shock when my mum called me, it was March 29^th, 2008. My Nan had got up that morning on her own and made a cup of tea and brought it into my Pops who was in the living room curled up in a ball. He often slept like this so to my Nan it wasn’t alarming, but a few hours later she phoned a friend, and said that he hadn’t woken to drink his tea.

My beloved Pop’s had passed through the night, after having a heart attack. My world had been ripped apart, he was everything to me. I couldn’t imagine never hearing him say ‘come on Kimmy, keep it up girl’ and although it sounds bad, I wasn’t expecting him to go before my Nan, what with all she had been through in the last few years. I was going through a bad time personally when he passed and to loose someone that made such an impact in your life was even worse, I really don’t know how I got through it.
My sister & I made the decision to see him before the funeral, it’s the first time I had ever done it, and I’m not sure I would ever do it again.. I’m just so glad she was there, we broke down completely, and it was a day neither of us will ever forget.

My Nan lived in a care home after Pop’s passing. My mum and I would usually take it in turns visiting her weekly, bringing crossword books, kitkats and a little bottle of brandy as a treat. She’d make me laugh, with stories of the staff and other patients.
After all she had been through, I cursed the day we found out she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 08, from then on, I saw my wonderful Nan become a shadow of her former self, missing my Pop‘s more and more each day I just wanted her to stop suffering.

I became really poorly myself in December 08, and after time in intensive care I was recovering back on Culm (a total of four months in hospital) when my Nan had been taken into Torbay, she wasn’t given long to live and I knew too well the expressions and tones of peoples voices when they have such news to tell. My consultant allowed me to visit, I was driven by ambulance on oxygen to say my final goodbyes, the nurses told me before I went to her bedside that she wouldn’t recognise me, so as I held her hand and fought back the tears, I told her I loved her. ‘ I love you Kimmy, with all my heart, I love you lot’s’ was her reply, I was so happy she knew it was me, I hugged her and then they wheeled me away, back to Exeter, no matter who came into my room, I just couldn’t be consoled.

Nan passed a few days after my visit, January 29^th 2009. I was heartbroken, but knew she was with my Pop’s and Kevin again and was no longer suffering, I attended the funeral in my wheelchair, I had written a reading which my mum read out as I was too unwell, the day completely took it out of me, but I was thankful that she was no longer in pain. I miss them everyday it hurt's.

The best grandparents in the world, my Nan & Poppops.

I look back over the years and the pain and heartache our family has had to go through, and I don’t want to put anyone through that again for a very long time.
I know my time will eventually come, and I will join my Pops, my Nan, Cheeky Uncle Kevin & my little star Kayleigh again, but there is no way in hell I’m ready to go yet.
I’ve found my happiness with Stefan, my Pop’s would be so proud, and I intend to make the most of it for as long as I possibly can.