Time heals , they say

Time heals they say.......

Back story - Tues 22nd May 2002 my second daughter Eloise was a fit and well 21mth old in nursery for the day. Wednesday 23rd May she was in intensive care ventilated with a barely functioning heart because a virus (later to be confirmed as hand, foot and mouth) had caused myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy, she was fighting for her life.

I don’t actively feel pain because of the 23rd of May 2002, but the memories, when they do cross my mind, evoke a myriad of emotions. I have hoped for indifference, to be able to let go of past hurts. I’ve found that the hurt shifts, it bends and lays dormant…but the hurt stays, just in a different way. My pain is from my memories and no amount of therapy will erase them.

Time is interesting. Time can be my greatest friend, and my enemy. 17 years have  passed but my mind is still triggered regardless of time. Time has brought me so much happiness , my beautiful children, my friends, all the wonderful things I get to see and experience. I still grieve for the life I thought I’d have with Eloise,  I’m not consumed by it but it remains. Just yesterday I said I was fed up with chasing hospitals, GPS, nurses for appointments, blood test results, who is doing what with the blood samples that were taken. I want someone else to do it but there is just me. I get tired of it, tired of a system that never communicates within itself , tired of everything being so complicated, tired of explaining, tired of assumptions , just generally fucked off ! Obviously this is then followed up with my old favourite guilt ! Time hasn’t erased those feelings either, has time run out? 

Time has taught me a few lessons over the past 17 years, I never thought I’d be sat here writing this with Eloise upstairs on her computer an 18 year old student currently doing her A’levels . In the beginning I never saw a future for her, I didn’t see her surviving the night she was that ill. Now we know she’ll be starting a degree course in September just like her peers. You know I love a musical so I guess time has shown me that “the show must go on.” I had to pick myself up when all I wanted to do was lie there , silent, numb, broken and alone.  

 I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve told me that time is a great healer. I know I’ve avoided using the phrase especially to my bereaved friends, the pain of losing someone will never heal completely, in my opinion. 17 years have passed and I’ve not healed, the pain is still there but it is less. However when I’m triggered the flashbacks are vivid, the conversations from that day word perfect, the dragging fear , the suffocating feeling, life changed forever. I’m scarred , the wound will remain now. My whole life plan changed with the results of Eloise’s chest X-ray and subsequent echo scan. Originally I was locked into my sadness, I found it hard to go on with my life but I did. I put on a bloody good show, no one would have known how traumatised I was. My fault I didn’t want to talk, so I didn’t want anyone to ask if I was ok, I didn’t want to upset anyone else as I found it just meant that I had to support them emotionally too, I became the strong one. Inside I continue to grieve to this very day, fate can be an absolute bitch ! 

I do look after my wound, with my thoughts, my inner will and by keeping myself in the present moment as much as possible. By living for the day I don’t think too much about the past as I have never wanted this event to define my life, it changed it but it doesn’t own it. Today I’ll be honest my wound will give me pain, it will haunt me like a movie on replay.  It’s just a day and it will pass. So while time hasn’t been a great healer for me, I have learnt that time is now.