Shae's story, Part 1

Chapter 1

Mums story

Where do I begin?
First of all, to fill you in a bit, Shae my daughter was eighteen yrs old at the time of her first seizure, she had just moved out of home to live with some friends, she had a car and a licence; she worked four days a week at a new job, which was console operator at a service station. She had everything going for her, a new and exciting life with friends, a new job, she was so happy.

It starts on a Saturday afternoon, I am at home by myself, the TV is on and I am watching my beloved footy team, (the Adelaide crows) playing, I cant even remember now who they were playing, it doesn’t matter any more, when the phone rings, I answer it and immediately my skin starts to tingle as the caller is a police woman asking if I am Maxine Cresswell the mother of Shae Cresswell, “yes”, I say, holding my breathe. I can feel my heart literally thumping in my chest and neck, as she tells me that my daughter is in the local hospital, brought in by ambulance as she collapsed at work. The silence around me is deafening as she is telling me. Which hospital? I ask over and over again. I just keep saying “yes, yes, yes” to the police lady on the phone. The hospital is about fifteen minutes drive from where I live. I just grab my mobile phone, bag and race outside, leaving the lights, and the TV on inside. I don’t even know if I locked the front door as I left and got in to my car, which is a beat up old laser. The speed limit is 100 k’s from where I live down a main highway, to a small town where the hospital is. I have to keep checking the speed dial as I want to go way over the speed limit. I keep telling myself, she is ok, she is OK.

I just park the car near the emergency entrance, I don’t know if where I park is ok or not, I just run inside the emergency entrance. Luckily it is a small town hospital, so know one else is in the emergency waiting area. I have to say my name through the glass window and am told to wait. I can see the ambos and police there, waiting, my heart is beating so hard, I have to literally take deep breathes to calm myself down, and hold onto whatever is needed. What is needed? I don’t know. I know anything, but my daughter is behind those walls somewhere. A lady comes to the window and asks me to come in , “thankyou, I mumble but my face doesn’t show any signs of thankyou, just confusion and fear. At last I am closer to my daughter. I am shown a cubical and there she is, sitting up in bed, her work clothes open, monitor tabs stuck to her body. I look at her, and she glares at me, like she doesn’t know who I am. I look at the nurse for some sort of confirmation, but they just smile weekly at me. I hug my daughter, but, she still looks at me like I have to give her answers to who I am, I feel like I am a stranger. She has an oxygen mask on, so she is unable to talk clearly. She still looks vague, and one of the nurses asks me “does she usually look like this?” I ask Shae, “are you ok,” she doesn’t answer me. I say no she doesn’t seem to know me, as I say that I am trying so hard to hold it together, the tears well up in my eyes and there is a massive lump in my throat , I take another deep breath and smile at Shae.

The nurses told me that by the information that they got from the ambulance attendants was that, she was at work and she collapsed. I think my god; they keep asking me does she take drugs. “NO” I say she is so anti drugs there is no way she would do that. They said that when the ambos asked her if she had taken any pills she said “yes, two pills.” I say again and again “NO WAY” she is anti drugs, she doesn’t like her friends doing that. She is anti drugs, I just keep repeating over and over to myself, like I am talking to a brick wall. the nurses say to go and talk to the police. Walking from her bed to the desk where the ambos and police are I keep saying to myself, “NO she is anti drugs” The police officer tells me that they have a hold up to go to so they cant answer any of my questions, they are very, very sorry but have to go. They do say that a customer she was serving helped her as she collapsed behind the counter, and rang for an ambulance, also that they had to close the service station down until someone could come and take over.

In the mean time there is someone coming into hospital to see her, a guy. They ask me if I knew him, I looked through the glass door and had no idea. I didn’t know him. They asked me to go out and talk to him to see if I could find out more information. I felt like a fool, as I new the girl that my daughter had moved in with but not her boyfriend. Theses are the people that my daughter is living with and I didn’t know them. In the mean time they are monitoring Shae, I want to be in the room with Shae but I also want to find out what is going on. I ask the guy his name,(Coulter) he said Shae moved in with his girlfriend and they all live together. I am relieved to have someone else to talk to, to find out as much as I can. I told him that they said Shae had taken pills; he said “NO WAY, she doesn’t do that shit.” Thankyou, someone else that knows my Shae and that she wouldn’t do that. I know the hosp are only doing there job and the ambos, but believe us parents when we say they wouldn’t do drugs, we sometimes do know, what our kids get up to. I know sometimes kids say that and later the parents find out that they do, do drugs, but Shae and I have a great friendship and I trust and believe my daughter, she would tell me if she had tried them. Anyway Coulter was great, as he said he would go and get her car from work, and take it back to their place. I asked him what happened last night. Evidently Shae him and his girlfriend all went out clubbing as they usually do each weekend, they all got home around two in the morning, he said that Shae was vomiting, through too much alcohol, but she went to sleep and she was fine. They say she woke up to go to work looking a bit worse for wear, but she was OK.

In the meantime the hospital was doing tests on Shae to see what was in her system if anything and what was going on. By now my mobile phone is ringing, and its one of Shae’s girlfriends (Alicia) another person I didn’t know. She was in tears telling me that she was on the phone to Shae when she collapsed, she said that one minute Shae was ok then Shae dropped the work phone, all her friend could hear, was these strange groaning noises and lots of commotion and the phone went dead. I told her that they didn’t know what was going on. I told Alicia that the hospital want to know if she had taken any pills last night, and once again she said “NO WAY, Shae doesn’t do that she is anti drugs.” I’m thinking, I may not know all of Shae’s friends now since she has moved out but, I know my daughter. I reassure Alicia that Shae is ok and that I will let her know what’s going on.
I went back into the room and told the nurses what this guy had told me and what Alicia had said when she was on the phone to Shae at work. The hospital staff said that it seems like what her friends have said and the information that they got from the police and ambos that Shae’s drinks may have been spiked and they will be testing her blood to see what drugs are if any still in her system. I’m thinking omg, you hear about that and am thinking you only hear about the kids that died or raped from their drinks being spiked. I was amazed, and angry, how could this happen? The hospital staff said that we would be admitting her upstairs to keep an eye on her. She was looking a bit better now and the nurse could see the difference in her. I could talk to her now and she didn’t know what happened and couldn’t remember anything. At least she recognised me by now. she was still a bit vague, about the whole episode and couldn’t remember anything before waking up in the hospital. During this time I went outside to ring my parents to tell them what had happened. That was horrible as they are in there seventies and I didn’t want to scare them, as by this time it was getting later in the day. I told them as much as I knew which, wasn’t much. It’s like a puzzle, the pieces aren’t all there, and I will let them know more later.

When I go back inside Shae is looking a lot better and asking questions. I answer what I can with what I know, who I had talked to and who had come in, and what was going on with her car etc. Shae said that she was feeling really strange but better, and was hungry. This is when the nurses decided to move Shae to another cubical room, one that isn’t the main emergency room with monitors etc. They get Shae a cheese sandwich as the kitchen had closed. I’m thinking while she’s eating the sandwich, ‘that’s my girl’

always hungry, so she must be feeling better. A short time afterwards they move Shae to a room upstairs, and I go with them, not taking any particular attention to where we are going. I just follow the bed and nurses as they take us to another room upstairs. Shae gets settled into her double room and the nurses say that I can stay in the room with her and sleep there over night to be with her. They are so nice as were the nurses down in emergency, and make us both feel comfortable. On this ward they had a nurse specialling her which means one on one nursing care. The nurse was not going to leave Shae’s bedside all night and was there to look after her, I felt better about this .so after Shae is settled in to the room I tell the nurse I’m going back to Shae’s work to get her stuff. She had left her jumper, shoes, mobile phone and other things at her work. Even though there is a nurse with her, I still tell the nurse at the desk where I am going.

It’s about ten minutes drive to her work. When I get there, there is a guy serving. I ask for Shae’s things. He asks how Shae is. I tell him that we are not sure what happened, and she will be staying in hospital over night. He hands me a plastic bag with her things in them. Just then my mobile phone rings, I don’t recognise the caller but answer it. It is the hospital, the nurse from the hosp said “that Shae has had a turn for the worse and to get back there straight away.” She said that “they had called a CODE BLUE on her, and they are going to transfer Shae to another hosp by ambulance.” Oh My God, as I walk outside the service station to talk to them, and to hear them better. How can I describe it , the feeling, hearing those words, my heart was aching. I had a lump in my throat, the size of a football. I say “what” she asks am I ok, by this time I am yelling into the phone,” is Shae ok.” I’m standing in the middle of the servo. I turn around saying, and crying “Oh My God.” I race back inside saying I have to go “Shae has got worse, don’t know what’s going on, don’t know when she will be back”.

It’s raining, as I get back into my car, I ring my mum and dad, and tell them Shae has taken a turn for the worse and to get to the hosp. I drive off in a blur of tears, I am screaming in the car, “you cant take her, she’s mine” and I’m banging my fists on the steering wheel, yelling, “No you cant take her she’s mine”, then I think, where am I? Think Maxine, concentrate, breathe, turn left at the lights, I have to literally tell myself how to drive the car out loud. I get some sort of control back, enough to drive the car. I don’t know how I did it, but I pull up in front of the hosp, turned off the lights, grab my mobile phone and run into the hospital. I think I know where I am, but I cant find the way to her ward. I just stand there at the end of a ward, looking down the corridor. the nurse sees me, “I’m lost” I tell her “Shae has taken a turn for the worse and I cant find her room.” I’m in tears, shaking, as I am now writing this part. I can’t see the key board for the tears in my eyes, the feeling is still so raw even after months later. Luckily the nurse that came to help me was the one that took us up to her room, so she knew where to take me. she showed me up to her room, they were still working on her when we got there, and I had to wait outside the room in the corridor. Another nurse came up to me and told me that Shae was ok, that she had seizure and that she is being transferred to another hospital for more tests. She gives me a big hug and just holds me, I just cling to her like I am clinging onto Shae, I needed that. When I get into her room the nurses down from emergency were with her with a mobile trolley, and they told me that she had, a “Tonic Clonic Seizure”, and that was her second one and that they have ordered an ambulance to transfer her as she needs more tests like an MRI which they can’t do here. Shae is very disorientated again, and looks at me like a stranger. Just then my parents arrive, they are scared and come in to see her, and she looks at them like she doesn’t know them either or why they are there. My parents are in there seventies, and they look so scared as well. Finally we are allowed back into the room, Shae is sitting up in bed, with a confused, strange look on her face. Her grandparents go up to her and give her a hug, and she just looks blankly at them, her face is very pale, her eyes look, well it’s a strange look, hard to describe, but they look dull, like she isn’t there. A short time after the ambulance arrives to transfer Shae to another hospital to have further tests. My parents say goodbye and tell me to ring them when we have any further information. We thank the nurses and go with the ambulance officers. By this time it’s about nine pm at night, it’s only been about five hours since I got the first phone call from the police, but it seems like days. Time just shuts down when you’re hurting. It has no relevance at all.