My mum became a policewoman when she was 18, she's full of incredible stories of things she did. Once she camped out in a van following the shooting at the Libyan Embassy. They kept vans full of female policewomen who could go in to rescue the Women if something happened.
After she had my sister, she had to finish her career at the police, and went into Childminding. It was such a great addition to my childhood, as there was always friends around ours. She was such an outgoing and creative woman, really inspiring and never stopping.
When I was 10 my mum suffered from a Subarachnoid Haemorrage. She'd been ill for a few weeks, and one morning I was woken up by my Grandparents not my Dad, they took us to school like normal, saying my mum had just gone for another check up. Early afternoon I was called out of class and taken to reception where my sister was (she was in secondary school by this time), along with my Dad and his best friend from Liverpool who had driven down to drive my Dad around and help out. They've been friends since they were 16 and were both apprentices at British Airways, a true friendship there.
Admittedly, most of the memories are blurred out to me, I was young and didn't fully understand, my younger brother was very young at the time and has very little recollection of the events, let alone what life was like before. I remember visiting my mum for the first time. She was in intensive care, with half her head shaved, and a ventilator breathing for her. I passed out and woke up with all the nurses looking over me.
I also remember when she got MRSA, and we had to put on gloves and a face mask when we went to visit her in her own room. My sister had modelled in a fashion show, and we showed it to my mum on the TV screen one time.
I also remember one day when I went in in a leather jacket and a brown hat, all the nurses sang "dedicated follower of fashion" to me and we joked at how my mum always slept with her mouth open to catch flies.
I guess, after it first happened, most of the following memories were happy. Like the day we took my mum out in a wheelchair, and got to spend a day out of the hospital with her. There was a lot of ups and downs, especially in the years since. My mum suffered a few fits over the following years, the worst of which happened when we got stranded in Dubai due to the Ash Cloud. We had been sunbathing on the roof by the pool, and I heard her saying Laura repeatedly. When I looked over she was having a fit, the worst I'd seen her have, kicking her arms and legs out. A nearby guest ran to get my dad and brother. By the time the ambulance arrived she was blue with foam coming from her mouth. It's such a horrible memory. The paramedics didn't want to take her to hospital when she stopped fitting, I stood a few metres away with my brother while my dad shouted that she would die if they didn't. He was definitely old enough to know what was happening that time.
We later discovered she had epilepsy. I think she's only had one fit since that, she was in the kitchen and my niece knocked a drink over, and she panicked and sat down before it happened.
In the years that have followed her Stroke, we've all appreciated little things. My schools motto was "It's not about doing extra-ordinary things, but about doing ordinary things, extra-ordinarily well", such a relevant and inspiring quote. The biggest achievements were the things my mum was most determined to do, learning to say the alphabet, writing her name, developing her speech. Of course, she still gets our names mixed up, but her speech has developed extra-ordinarily well.
A couple of years ago, after a year of studying part-time at college, my mum sat her Maths GCSE and got a B. Such an amazing achievement that shows you really can do anything. She studied every night and was so nervous in the run up to the exam, but came out with an amazing result.
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