A couple of days ago I had a conversation with our neighbour Tracey over the back fence. The conversation got onto the topic of aged parents with Alzheimer’s disease.
Tracey: It’s hard when they don’t recognize you. My mother got
to the stage where she didn’t recognize any of us, her kids.
Me: Mine neither. She would look at me and you could tell
she was thinking “I know you are possibly someone who featured in my life, but
I’m afraid that’s as close as we’re going to get, sunshine.”
Tracey: The night before my mother died, she recognized me.
We knew she was close to the end and we were all in her hospital room. She said
“Good, Bridget is here. How are you Bridget?” I was glad that I was the only
one in the room that she recognized. She died that night.
Me: Bridget? But . . why did she call you Bridget?
Tracey: Oh, when I was born, mum wanted to call me Bridget
but Dad didn’t like it. He insisted on calling me Tracey. Mum always called me
Bridget when I was a kid.
Me: Oh right . .
Tracey: It’s funny – when I had the cancer operation I died
on the operating table. Was dead for about a quarter of an hour before they
could revive me. When I came out of it, it was the first time I ever saw my son
Daniel crying. He never cries. Anyway when I died I saw my mother. She was
wearing the blue dress she always wore, with the pearl earrings. Her hair was
freshly permed. She said “Come on Bridget, pull your socks up girl, you have to
get back out there. We’re not ready for you here yet.”
Me: Golly, right. I’ve heard of that sort of thing happening
a few times. I used to work with a bloke who had been in the Army. He caught
malaria overseas and when he came back to Australia he had a relapse. He was in
the Alfred hospital and they declared him dead. Put a sheet over him and all. The
orderly who was taking him to the morgue noticed that one of his big toes
twitched under the sheet. The bloke I worked with said that he went down a long
corridor towards a light, and a voice said “Go back, it’s not your time.”
Tracey: I’m not a religious person and I always thought that
was it whey you die, but it makes you think. Anyway after that, I was in
intensive care for two weeks. You have to be pretty sick to be in intensive
care for that long.
Me: I was in intensive care for two weeks, when I was 20,
but I only remember snatches of it.
Tracey: How’d you end up in intensive care?
Me: Motor bike accident.
Tracey: The worst part of it for me was the naso gastric
tube. The doctor tried and tried but couldn’t get it to go past my throat. In
the end, one of the nurses did it. The doctor was sure she wouldn’t be able to
since she had only been there two days, but she got it to go in straight away.
Me: I had one of those. I only have very vague memories of
it going in but I remember pulling it out. I used to pull out all of the tubes
they attached to me – I was a bit crazy. It really pissed the nurses off. With
the naso gastric tube I remember pulling and pulling and thinking it was never
going to end.
Tracey: I thought the same thing when they removed mine.
