Shae's story, part 2

Chapter 2

We are in the ambulance being transferred to the next hospital; I am sitting in the front with Shae in the back with the ambulance officer, who is taking her details. I keep looking back at Shae as I am so worried that this is going to happen again. I keep feeling this knot in my stomach like it’s a huge ball; I can see that Shae keeps looking back over the end of the trolley looking for me. Shae is eighteen years old, but at that time it’s like she is my baby still. She seems so small on the trolley, so vulnerable. I travel this way on these roads nearly every day, but it looks so unreal, ‘surreal’ (I use to wonder about that word, ‘surreal’, what it meant, but now I know exactly what it means to go through it, and to feel it, it’s a weird word and a very weird feeling.)

We finally pull up at the next hospital, this is one that I know some of the staff, as I trained as an enrolled nurse here over thirty years ago, but now as a mum of a patient, its like you know nothing of what goes on you just want to know answers. Shae is again just confused at having to relay her story to another person, when she really doesn’t know what happened. The nurse reads her case file, and it seems to be that they are still thinking that her drinks were spiked at the nightclub, the night before. Once again she is settled into the cubicle, she is attached to a different monitor this time, one that monitors her vitals all the time with out the nurses doing anything. It is very temperamental and if she moves her arm the wrong way the monitor makes a noise constantly. Shae is trying to get some sleep as it’s quite late by now about midnight, and she is totally exhausted, all she wants to do is sleep. This hospital isn’t like the other one, this is a lot busier emergency room and so we are left completely alone, no one comes near us at all for hours, only every now and then to check on her monitor. I’m thinking this is different than the last one. At the last hospital, we had a nurse one on one, and here she is just left alone. I know that if there is any change in her condition the monitors will let them know, we are told that she will be going for an MRI scan later during the night, and will have to wait, during this time Shae sleeps, and I just sit in the chair. By now I am tired, confused, scared, and cold. They put us in a cubicle right next to a door that the staff goes through often, all night. Not sure where it goes to, but ever time they go through the door there is a swooshing noise, as the door opens, and a beep, beep as it scans there ID badge. So this is keeping me awake, but I can’t go to sleep, I am wide awake, there is no way that I am going to sleep. I want to be awake if Shae needs me; I just sit there for hours just going over in my head over and over again. What has happened the last few hours, and all I do is just sit and watch Shae.

During the night, I do nod off, if you can call it that while sitting up in a chair, its uncomfortable but who cares after what my daughter has just gone through. During the night some time, about two Am, they came and took Shae somewhere for more tests. They say they are going to do a CT Scan, Shae is taken away. When they come back I ask what happened, but they say they can’t tell me anything to see the doctor later. Shae goes back to sleep, as by now her body is exhausted; she is looking tired around the eyes. Anyway after a few hours they tell me that I don’t have to stay with Shae I can go home. At that time I realized, I have no money on me, no keys nothing on me at all, as when I was called back to the last hospital, when Shae had a turn for the worse. I just drove up to the hospital, ran out of the car, left my keys in the ignition of the car, by handbag on the front seat of the car, all I had was the mobile phone. So I asked to stay with her and would leave when she did. They didn’t seem to be too enthusiastic about that, but hey who cares. I wasn’t going to leave her, as every time she woke up, the first thing she did was look around for me, and then, most of the time she would just drift straight off to sleep again. So I knew that she wanted me there with her. During the morning the DR came around and said that Shae can go home. I asked about the tests that they did during the night, he said that they were fine, and as they weren’t sure of the cause of Shae’s seizures then just to go home, rest for a few days, and go see your DR if there is any concerns.
My immediate thoughts were, well what happens next if this happens again? I was still in shock, about everything and not really having any answers to why this had happened.

I had to ring a friend who came and picked us up, and take us back to the original first hospital for my car, bag, keys etc.
When we got back to the first hospital my car was where I left it, the car door was unlocked, and the keys were still in the ignition. My hand bag was still on the front seat open fall all to see, gees I was lucky it was a small private country hospital. I was amazed that everything was still there.
I took Shae home, and because she had moved out of my place with friends I didn’t have any spare bed for her, so she slept on my bed for a few days until I knew she was better and could go back to where she lived with friends. Even though I didn’t feel comfortable with this, I had to respect her decision when she was ready to go back with the friends.
Because everyone thought her drinks had been spiked and this was probably a one off event, there was no follow up from the hospital, no medication, and no appointments etc, things just got back to normal.

While Shae was staying with me, we went shopping a few times and I was constantly watching her if she went out of sight. I was constantly listening to, the sounds around me when she was out of my sight, my thoughts were constantly what if she had another seizure. I would go looking for her if she was too long in a shop, she didn’t know any of this, but if she went into a shop on her own, I would wait outside and my heart would be beating so fast while I was waiting and wondering, what was taking so long. I would silently begin to panic until I saw her walk out of the shop, then I would smile at her and breathe again. It’s an awful feeling constantly worrying about your teenage/adult kids, but you do, even now I still worry about her if she takes too long away from me when I’m out with her. I want to be everywhere with her, but I know I can’t. I have to wait, and stand back, but it’s not nice, I don’t like it. I just want to wrap her up in bubble wrap to protect her. That time home with me she just mainly slept. I was amazed at how much sleep she was getting; I didn’t realize how much having seizures were taking out of her body. She just constantly slept; she was eating well which was a good thing. I knew that her body was mending with all the sleeping. After a few days home and sleeping and eating, she decided it was time to go back to her friend’s house. I took her back there, the girl Angie was home which I liked. I made sure Angie had my mobile phone number in her phone; I kissed Shae goodbye, and left. I had a few tears going home, that’s all part of being a mum. When I got home it was quiet again, just me and my dog Marvin. I went around the house, looked for anything that Shae had left behind, any excuse to go back and see her; she was only fifteen minutes away by car, but far enough. I didn’t find anything so I just sat on my bed and reflected what had happened over the last couple of days and just cried, and cried. I could still smell her perfume on my pillow, I didn’t change the sheets till the weekend, and I needed to be with her still. I needed that comfort and warmth, the house suddenly felt cold without her. I felt like, I needed to be with her still; in a way I was grieving. I didn’t do that the first time that she moved out.