One Step At A Time

I passed out feeling rotten then woke up to a shock

- Hattie Bishop, Frances Leate

My mum, Madge, 88, sat in her armchair, gripped by her favorite game show, while I slumped on the sofa feeling sick.

Bless her, I thought.

It was February 2018, and even though she was nearly 90 and in the grip of dementia, Mum was still a lovely company.

As for me, I’d been laid up with a virus for a few days.

The doctor said a bug had been going around, and I’d had to take time off from my secretarial job.

Still, it’d been nice to spend time with Mum.

Me and my brother, Anthony, 54, were her live-in carers.

She’d spent most of her life looking after me and my six brothers, so now it was the least we could do.

We’d take her out, buy her fish and chips by the coast.

Now, yawning, I pulled myself up and went to make Mum’s bed.

Only, as I plumped up her pillows, I felt light-headed.

And crashed to the floor with a thud.

Next thing I knew, I was waking up at Sunderland Royal Hospital, the faces of all my brothers staring down at me.

I tried to speak but no sound came out. I couldn’t even raise my head.

‘It’s OK,’ my brother Michael, 63, soothed.

But it wasn’t OK.

Because a whole month had gone by while I’d been in an induced coma.

Michael explained that I’d suffered sepsis and pneumonia, had multiple organ failure.

‘The veins in your limbs have collapsed,’ he said.