I don’t give enough credit to my mom as much as I should as a daughter. The past 2 days has taught me lessons that I never realised about myself either and how thankful I am to my mom for instilling these lessons.
The man was away for a 2-day short trip and it was my job to look after the house when he is not around. The mom-in-law (mil) just had a surgery 2 weeks ago and looked like she was recovering well, which was why he decided to go on his trip. We had finally gotten our domestic help after a 2-month wait and my mil was tasked to training her as she was at home most of the time. Finally, our lives were going back to normal, or so we thought until this happened.
Went out with the girlfriend for a short drink and dinner as it’s been weeks since we last met and we both really needed to catch up and chill. It wasn’t a late night, reached home at 10-ish pm only to find my mil pale and clutching her tummy (where the surgery was) gasping for air. I was shocked and wondered what went wrong, for I had called earlier in the day and she hadn’t mentioned that she was in pain. As she spoke, it was clear to me that she was visibly in pain. We decided that she will pop a panadol first to see if the pain would go away before deciding the next course of action. She really couldn’t move and I made the executive decision to send her to the nearest A&E. I wanted to call the ambulance, but she refused so I called a cab instead. At the hospital, she had to take 2 injections but the pain still didn’t go away. So the doctor decided to admit her.
You may wonder, why this post is a tribute to my mom? Throughout this entire episode, I realised that I had remained calm, instead of panicking and calling the man (who’s miles away and will hop on the next plane back to solve the problem). I started to think what would my mom do in a situation like this and as I thought about the past, I recollected how calm and collected she’s always tried to be. My dad travels often for his work and my mom is often at home to look after us. Whenever she faces any problems, being human, she does panic, but she also always composes herself quickly and comes up with the best solution It could be a front that she’s keeping for deep down inside, it’s not easy dealing with the situation. I know cos I was really nervous but I thought to myself, what good will it do for the man if I were to cry and ask him how to deal with the situation. So a brave front I kept as well.
Through this episode, I’ve learned that I can be strong too and this invaluable life lesson is taught by mom. Life’s never a bed of roses and there will be many other challenging lessons to learn but if I hold on to her strength, I know I can ride through the storm and emerge stronger just like she has been.
i also wanna learn from mommy
bark bark bark
I hope your hubby’s mum is doing better now. The whole episode sounds so scary and going to the hospital was definitely the best call. Parents usually have super high pain thresholds and tend not to want to trouble anyone till the pain is really bad.
She’s still in the hospital as doc said she should still be kept under observation. I hope she gets better soon.. You’re right about parents having high threshold of pain, I guess they want to just take in the pain themselves and not worry us as children.
Hope the drs are sensitive. Met some real insensitive ones at the most critical times when I had older family members in hospital. It added to the distress. Although I must say out of the few bad ones there was one gem of a specialist as well. Humble, and kind which is the way they all should be.
Yup… nurses included. We met some really nice nurses but some can really quite be grumpy.