9th April 2021 Miss You Mum

April 9th 2021

Empathy is the ability to recognize emotions and to share perspectives with other people. … Cognitive empathy is being aware of the emotional state of another person. Emotional empathy is engaging with and sharing those emotions. so yes today is a sharp reminder for me to continue living my life to help others

April 9th have become a date that I dread. My Mum passed away on the 9th of April 2018. She had been diagnosed with advanced stage vascular dementia in 2017. She died of bilateral pneumonia underlying dementia . Both my parents died in my arms my Dad in 1994 and my Mum in 2018. I was very close to my Mum and I have missed her so much. 

April 9th 2020 I was instructed by my medical team to isolate, my immune systems had not recovered for the Stem cell transplant and I was showing 4 signs of Covid. 
And of all days to begin isolation. I had to call my employer with the news and it led to a massive argument. Not a good day to argue with me especially as I was only following medical instructions. I had managed to stay working throughout Feb, March and into April but my COVID test had returned a false negative and my oncologist had instructed isolation to more protect me that others. Full COVID-19 would have killed me without question and the two weeks following the 9th were a struggle- I was on 3 antibiotics, steroids and a steroid inhaler. It felt like a bad flue. 
So I am in isolation now exactly 12 months. I had adhered to every instruction and to be very honest I’m tired of this. 

BUT I called my oncologist yesterday as I have yet to get the vaccination, he told me that he was about to call me. Now that I am over three and a half years post stem cell transplant and three years in remission I am no longer in the high risk group and therefore can return to an active office based role but I should insure that precautions are in place such as masks, social distancing and avoiding meetings over 15 minutes. On the side of protecting me further I’ve been told to work from home “if and where possible“ The vaccine program in Ireland is slow to say the least, they are months behind. With a population of only 4.9m they have only succeeded in vaccinating 700,000 in two months. Please do not think that I am been in any way negative. I’m keeping busy with projects in my house and the improvements have been substantial. The green light for work is brilliant and I’ll be spending the weekend working in my resume

But not today, today I mourn the loss of my Mum.