Dear Alex, well, what a week!!!!

What a week!!!

May 9^th 2012,

Dear Alex,

This has been one HELL of a week babes…I have been tested very thoroughly and MADE IT. I have no idea how, I have no idea whether or not I am in fact really here, but I apparently am, so are you, and four whole children…

Last Tuesday I was facing three weeks very sudden notice to vacate my present house…I frantically began looking, coming up against dead ends, facing being placed in ‘emergency housing’ which could have been a long way from you, a change of schools, and do you know what, I am not even going to go into all the rest, but suffice to say, at the moment, and for the past 7 months or so I have been doing 16 (sometimes longer if you count Mitzi and Esmie waking loads certain nights) hour days, seven days a week…I was teetering…that corner to rock in was looking all too inviting. But I crawled my way out and began fighting. Just as you would do, and do on a daily basis.

Cooking meals, washing, folding clothes, school runs, homework achieved a whole week in advance (!) actually only as I didn't read the hand in date and we did it the morning before it was not due in, that'll teach me! I even had four black pairs of school shoes polished, lined up in the hallway ready to go this morning after a sleepless night with Mitzi and another nasty ear infection. I gave up and got up at 2 am, going back to bed at 5…

BUT, I have a phone call on Monday-there’s potentially a miracle house popped up!!! I go immediately to have a look, my lovely friend Clare looked after the kids so I could go without making a ‘WE'RE HERE!!!!!’ impression, a slightly more subdued, ‘oh, the kids are good and quiet’ straight up lying, approach.

Since, people have asked me about the house, and I could not tell them any details, as all I did was measure the front door to make sure you would be able to fit in the wheel chair, and get you into the lounge…which I reckon I can! I didn’t care about the rest-it could have been burned out for all I cared! Funny how your priorities change! So I have said ‘yes pleeeeeaaaase’ to it and waiting with baited breath to hear the landlady will accept us…

Your eyes, unseeing, light up and turn towards my voice direction whenever I come in. Delight, reassurance that I am by your side. It overwhelms me that light in your eyes…feeling my face, my hair, kissing me with kisses that now follow puckered lips and real-life kissing noises…speech, although still very unclear, you are trying some of the time, and the kids love this.

Our life was a different pursuit before, we had very, very different goals, and this has changed all of that. Our dream now is to one day be in the same house sleeping together one day…it’s a long way off, but I know we’ll get there…

I am in cahoots with a wonderful and very supportive friend, Veronica Guilfoyle, who is living and surviving her own experience like ours, after her son suffered a spinal chord injury, but it comes under the same bracket as a head injury due to the consequences. We’re compiling a booklet, website with information that we have had to blindly, frantically gather from knowing nothing about how all this works, whilst in the middle of living through the trauma. Including the finer details, the care involved, the physical and emotional trials daily, and we are determined to do something with this, getting a comprehensive booklet for starters on the go so anyone who suffers a similar incident will at least have a book of what to do and where to go- having not had this, we know how crucial this would be. So I spend the evenings collating, gathering information and trying to put a comprehensive booklet together for others who may have the same experience…who knows where that will lead?

Shattered, yes, I am, relentless, yes, this is that. Moments of ‘can I really do all this?’ are frequent, but the fight, determination kicks back in, and I keep going.

Missing you is consciously, subconsciously engrained on my every thought and act. But I am learning to deal with it, in hope, that this is just a ‘pause’, that one day, things won’t be quite like this, you will be nearly the same again one day…

I feel surrounded by friends and love. Buoyed up. I just know I need to say ‘help’ and they would all come running…it’s just taking that step without thinking it’ll all crash around my ears if I am not doing it all myself…

So a week it’s been, a week has gone, and good news looks to be on the horizon…

I thank God for all the richness of blessings from people, friends, family, out there. I am very blessed…

Here is to another positive week (but let’s maybe hold off another move if we can for a while hey??)

I LOVE you Alex Wood, more than I ever, ever imagined existed…

Me xxxxxxx