I have been avoiding this topic for a number of reasons. One, I don't want to bore people with the same old stuff and two, it's just plain difficult.

But when they admitted my mother into the hospital, we were waiting around for test results in what Moffitt calls the DRC. (Direct Referral Center -- kind of like a mini ICU/Emergency Room)

They rushed a woman in. She was slumped over in her wheelchair struggling, no more like GASPING for breath. That horrible rattling sound when air tries to pass through a closed airway. The death rattle, I call it.

I had a damn flashback, which I haven't had in a long time. I've been triggered and shaken up but an actual slam back into the past... you know, when you completely lose touch with reality, well, it's been awhile.

The really sad part is that when I "came back around" the fourteen-year-old me wished my mother didn't have to witness it, just like I remembered feeling way back then. (Thirty-something years ago) And just like then, I couldn't protect her.

You don't have to read this as I know most of you have already done so, but I just needed to post it to complete the cleansing act. Thanks for letting me.

PLEASE OH PLEASE

The sound of a kitten in danger grows faint as the whirring blades of a lawnmower draw near. I see a small honey-colored ball of fur up ahead and I have seconds to save it from the mower’s path. I push and pull and shove, but the kitten does not move. Only then do I realize it’s buried up to it’s neck in the frozen, winter mud. The fumes, the roar, the power of the chopping blades attack, and the cry of the kitten is silenced.

I try to shake off yet another nightmare, even though gooseflesh crawls up my neck, around my throat and threatens to suffocate me. Last night's dream woke me up when I heard the loud splash of a brick tied to a bag full of kittens hit the water in Salem harbor. Not nearly as frightening as the lawnmower's whirring blades I still hear now, even though I'm awake.

I close my eyes and listen to my heart ticking out the seconds of my life. I wonder why I dream of dead kittens. Since Dad died, I think a lot about death for a fourteen-year-old. He died in his sleep, Nana said, so now I'm afraid to close my eyes for fear I'll wake up dead. Sometimes, I envision myself lying in a casket, my dead hands draped with Rosary beads, just like Dad's. The
only difference is, my flesh is warm and I feel pain.

I sit up lightning fast when my heart stops ticking and starts pounding instead. The whirring sound has been replaced with a rattling gurgle and I know this is not another dream. Alarmed, I scramble out of bed sensing danger. Anxiety twists my stomach tight around my lungs till I stop breathing, then rushes me to my brother's room where I flip on the light. Stephen's chest is heaving, up and up it rises, almost convulsing as he tries to draw an impossible breath.

A burnt bottle cap and a hypodermic needle are on his night-stand. "Stephen?" No response. I see his lips are purple. "Oh my God, Stephen!" I move in slow motion and touch his cold, clammy arm then jerk my hand back with dread. His dying skin reminds me of my father's lifeless hands that made me cringe when I touched them. The only difference is that Stephen's
aren't stiff. Yet.

With rubbery legs I fall into Brian and David's room, trying not to panic. "Brian wake up, there's something wrong with Stephen. ******* it Brian! WAKE UP!" But he's high on heroin and doesn't react right away. "David! GET UP! There's something wrong with Stephen." David opens his eyes and hears the gurgle. He rushes into Stephen's room, takes one look and slaps him
across the face. Hard. I turn my face to the wall and try to escape by pushing into it with all my might.

Please don't let him die, Daddy. Please.

I don't know what to do, where to go, how to help. I want to wake my mother up but don't want her to see this. Brian is up now, sitting on Stephen's chest. Slap - Slap - "Stephen, wake up" Slap - Slap. I don't understand why they're hurting him. Please oh - please don't slap the dying.

"I’m going downstairs to get Ma." Hysteria pulses through my veins and catches in my throat.

"No! Don't wake her up! And no cops," Brian warns.

"Get a bucket of water! Now!" David snaps, but I see his eyes are pleading.

Off I go down the curved wooden staircase, putting extra lead in my feet in hopes of waking my mother, who sleeps on the sofa since Dad died. I clang pots and pans around, find a large bowl and fill it with cold water. I’m trying to hurry when I hear her voice come from the darkness in the living room.

"What is it? What’s wrong?" I hear panic in those simple words.
"Something's wrong with Stephen. He can't breathe and he's turning blue," I sputter, relieved she's awake but so damn sad this is all happening.

"Jesus Christ! Why didn't someone wake me?" she asks, not really expecting an answer. The color of fear changes her into someone I don't recognize, but I follow her up the steps, spilling water everywhere.

It's utter chaos now, slapping, screaming, splashing. I think I’ll burst with fear. My mother yells at David, "Hurry up and call an ambulance!" As he runs to the phone she adds, "And tell them not to use the siren!" Guilt and shame make her say that. She doesn't want the neighbors to know the house reeks of addicts.

Both the police and medics are here, shouting their tough guy orders. The commotion and confusion are too much for me to take, so I drift down the hall to my parent's vacant bedroom. I rest my head on the cool window and watch the raindrops flicker, red - white - red - white - red - white. As the ambulance drives away into the pre- dawn hours, I fog up the glass with my living breath and write with a shaky finger.

Please, oh please don't die.
Please don't die.
Don't die.

Copyright © 2006 SJN

[allthegirls6]

This is harrowing. I feel sad to have read it but better able to understand your pain. Seems like the world can be a really **** place some times.

We love you flower

[SerenitysWave]

(((((((((((Orange_Blossom))))))))))))

Dearest ((((((orange)))))))))))))))))))) My closest sister ever
You are never a bore...........ever all those flashbacks are so very very real
The noise , "the death rattle" that sound never ever do you forget....
I complety understand why it shot you into a flashback.
To tell you the truth its like no other nosie I have ever heard...
Just the thought of it ............well.......
All you have been threw you are one of the bravest ppl i know...
You know i care and truly do understand ..............
sending you a big hug
your muffin

I honestly don't know what I'd do without all of you.

[Justgiving]

((((((((((((((Orange_Blossom))))))))))

Originally Posted by Orange_Blossom

I honestly don't know what I'd do without all of you.

you know what (((((((((((((orange)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
I do not know what we would all do with out you
and thats the truth
Muffin

[katheryn]

no words just hugs and love to you

[Fuzzybear]

((((((((((((((( Orange )))))))))))))))

[gimmeice]

(((((((((( orange blossom )))))))))))

((( Justgiving )))

((( Muffy )))

((( katheryn )))

((( Furry girl )))

((( Gimmeice )))

Thanks for being such good friends.

[SweetSunshine]

Its an old cliche I know, but those things we go thru in life, they make us stronger. They also help us to appreciate more in life. You my dear friend, have gone thru many awful things in your lifetime. Moreso in your most impressionable years. I cannot imagine how difficult seeing all this is for you. But now, I see a woman, who does her best to embrace life, and her husband, her mom , friends and memories of how much you love your family. You've been doing the best you can turning things around .

All of us who experience this demon called PTSD know that it can creep up on us at the worst of times. Its never easy to try to " deal " with it. Even harder not to let it show it affects us in that it never lets us forget what has happened.

I hope you know that no matter where you are, or what you are going thru, we aer here for you . Holding your hand, hugging you, crying with you. We will never let you be alone in all of this . Not like you felt back then.

[(JD)]

[pachyderm]

(((((Orange)))))

[multipixie9]

Sweetie I don't understand. What is this post all about? I do not understand it because I'm not as familiar with your story as most people here may be.

I know the addict stuff is real because I know. But all the nightmares and all. I don't get it.

Orange Blossom, I don't have to understand to care. I have spent most of my life in pain and alone. Mostly emotional pain more than physical, now it's both.

Please do not apologise to us for what you write. Isn't this what the forum is here for? We are here to support all of us - no matter what we face or how long we have been in our struggle???

When you say what you struggle with it makes me feel more free to say things I desperately want somebody to hear. I was so alone for so long - as far as people are concerned. I do believe God is here because He's my chief suppport, but I still need and want people support.

Neither of us is totally alone here. I care Dear, you matter. You do not deserve to suffer alone anymore. Hugs

Leslie and Pixies

Sweetie I don't understand. What is this post all about? I do not understand it because I'm not as familiar with your story as most people here may be.

I know the addict stuff is real because I know. But all the nightmares and all. I don't get it.

(((( Pixies ))))

Nine years ago my mother had her left lung removed and a 1/4 of her right lung due to cancer. We were told she was at a high risk for recurrence within five years. Well, she was able to stretch that out another four years but it has come back.

She was recently hospitalized and while we were there, they rushed a woman in who was fighting for her life. The "sounds" that she was making as she strugled for air caused me to have a flashback to something that happened thirty-something years ago.

That earlier time is reflected in the essay I posted, Please-Oh-Please. I did a lot of that type of writing when I first started T, so that T could understand what type of childhood I had. It was/is easier for me to write about these slices of my life than to verbalize them.

When the gasping woman came into the room, the sound flashed me back to the time I woke up to hear my brother making that same sound as he overdosed for the first time on heroin. (He and another brother eventually died. Both heroin related.)

I had always "remembered" the sound, but in a distant way without a real connection. Sort of like you would recount a scary movie, thinking you described your emotions until you saw the movie again, and realized it was scarier than anything you remembered.

The night in the hospital allowed me to connect that "scary sound" with the physical reactions. The combination validated that the terror I felt then was real and justified. This was HUGE for me. This is something I haven't been able to do. Each part of a memory has always been remembered and experienced separately. To get a complete blend of it, well, I'm still reeling.

The nightmare was just an example of the type of dreams I used to have. Kittens were always being tortured and I was always afraid they would die, and in some nightmares they did.

I now know the kittens represented me.

I hope this makes better sense.

My heartfelt thanks to all who've posted here and supported me via PM's, good thoughts, etc.

Your support helps strengthen me so that I can be there for my mom.

[nowheretorun]

(((Orange))))

my apologies for the number of times ive missed being on your support team... wishing for you strength and self understanding to help you through the less than great times... you deserve to give yourself much credit for all you do... remember all that is being accomplished even when you tell yourself about what has yet to be accomplished... and take breaks! kindness always.....

[cantstopcrying]

(((((((((((orangeblossom))))))))))) All you've been through! You truly arae a hero--to have had such tragedies in your life and still be strong not only for yourself, but for so many of us. You amaze me!

((( NWTR )))

Support comes in all forms and just knowing you'd be there if I needed you is support enough for me.

[hurtingintn]

((((orange))))

((( Peanut )))

Thanks for saying it, but I've done nothing heroic. I survived the best I could and I'm working hard at healing. There is nothing amazing about it.

((( hurtingintn )))

Thank you for the hug. It means a lot.

P-doc prescribed Klonopin twice a day. My tongue is raw on both sides from me pushing my tongue up against my teeth. That's what I do when I am overly stressed.

I am really trying to pay attention to this and stop. I've done it since I was a kid but I've never hurt my tongue like this before.

There's usually blood on my pillow when I wake up because I "bear trap" at night. Meaning my jaw slams together and I end up biting the inside of my cheeks, my tongue, or my bottom lip.

I am hesitant about taking it because my whole family are/were addicts. And even though I "know" I won't let myself get addicted, it's still hard for me to swallow any type of "sedating" drugs. Just knowing my brothers would take handfuls of this stuff makes me nervous. Makes me feel like them.