PERSONAL STORY

BERYL JESSIE SKLENARS
30-03-13 TO 09-08-04

I am reasonably certain Mum’s motto in life was:

 “Life is not just a journey to the grave in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming – WOW ! ! ! …..

What a ride! Anyone who knew her would have to agree!

I have no idea how I’m going to condense the happenings in Mum’s life, she packed so much in, but I’ll try.

Mum was the youngest of six in her family and was a bit of a tomboy, she was not very academic, however, could write ’til the cows came home about Kapiti Island – her favourite place by far! She, really attended school for the sports she participated in; she played basketball, tennis and was great at athletics at the Paraparaumu School.   After she left school she belonged to the Tararua Tramping Club and would go hiking to the highest point of Kapiti Island and the hills around the area, she would stay in huts that had rats as big as cats, but she didn’t mind. She excelled at tennis and received a cup for the best player in the Horowhenua District (Wellington to Levin).

Although she loved Kapiti she didn’t appreciate the water between the mainland and the Island, she was dreadful on the sea, I went with her and a friend to Takaka and Mum was the first on the ferry to be sick!  This was possibly her one and only failing.  Her, a cousin and a friend did their OE when they were in their twenties and she just wished the ship would go down to put her out of her misery – imagine how she felt knowing she had that ahead of her after her holiday! 

In between having babies (us three), she actually gave up tennis and concentrated on hockey, she continued playing until she broke her nose for the second time at the age of 46!  She played for the Te Awa team and was chosen for the HB Reps.

So table tennis entered our family’s lives - a more mild mannered sport for Mum, she was still dabbling with hockey of course, so when she gave up hockey, she still had a sport of some description, she didn’t exactly excel at table tennis, but enjoyed mixing with people.  At the age of 75 she tripped up while playing, fell and broke her wrist, this really knocked her because she couldn’t drive, write cheques or help people.  We watched her very slowly deteriorate from then on.

On reflection, she had been showing symptoms for a while, Barry and I just put it down to her balance (or lack of), because she suffered many bouts of vertigo (either inner ear or blood pressure) over the years, and when we started noticing other things happening, I took her to her useless Doctor mentioning this, also asking if Stematil had side effects, because Mum was using these for sleeping.  He looked up his records and didn’t seem to think they would, not offering any other suggestions.  Mum was having problems with circulation causing ulcers to form on her feet, by this time she was a little past dressing the ulcers herself and when she was 81 was finally hospitalised to do a bypass from her groin to her ankle, this was on show for quite some time afterwards. While in hospital, the Doctor there saw what her Doctor couldn’t and called Dr Baker (Neurologist) in, he called the family together and said Mum had all the symptoms of Huntington’s Disease and could they take her blood for testing, naturally we said that was fine, because it does make a difference if you can actually put a name to something and that her and us weren’t going nuts! But at that stage we didn’t know what we were in for.

Mum’s test came back positive, although only a small reading, then we were told the procedure to follow if we chose to be tested, all three of us chose to and after what seemed like three years, the three of us made an appointment with Mum’s useless Doctor to have the results read out to us.  I took my husband along for support, and when he read out that all three were negative, according to the Doctor, Alan’s face showed the most relief!

Mum was the most loveable person; she would go out of her way to give someone a hug or a kiss, sometimes to the embarrassment of the family.  She cared and shared until she could care and share no more.  It was as if she knew she only had a limited time, she tried to pack so much in. Barry would hear her banging around vacuuming at 3.00 am, when he asked her what she was doing she would say there just isn’t enough time in the day to do everything.

Being such a precious soul, we found it so hard to do some nasty things like tell her cheque books are no longer available, only plastic cards and money machines, because she was writing cheques out to everyone who came in contact with her   The Doctor who she went to see for a second opinion solved the driving problem, she went to him because he was a Catholic and he would know how much she needed the car to get to church.  Everyone said she wouldn’t be around for much longer once we had taken these two things away, but she just kept on hugging and kissing everyone. Don’t get me wrong, she did have her bad days too, Barry and I find it hard to believe that such a little lady with such a tiny frame could hurl a mattress, bedding and all the contents of her drawers out into the hall in frustration, this happened more than just a couple of times!

Even though Mum was 91 in March, she was still able to walk (aided), this, mainly due to the balance problem. Before she went into the Resthome, we tried teaching her to walk with a stick, but it was too late to teach her, this weapon was soon taken from her because it was a danger to everyone who came near, it was waving in the air more than on the floor!  Mum knew me right up until July last year and at the odd time towards to end, she knew Barry, but that was becoming very rare.

Mum didn’t suffer long, she kept very good health, she must have had a very strong heart, or maybe it was all the exercise with her movements that kept her so healthy.   She picked up a tummy bug on the Thursday, also had a urine infection, she was loosing so much body fluids, she became dehydrated, the Doctor asked both Barry and I on separate occasions if we wanted Mum to be put on a drip and we both said “No, but please make her as comfortable as possible”, she was in a fair bit of pain with the dysentery, so I asked for stronger medication, she was taken from a liquid Panadol to Morphine, this helped her relax and let go better.  It wasn’t a nice position to be in, but it was the right decision, Mum would not have wanted to linger any longer, she had said goodbye to a few of the staff and “say a prayer for me” to some others.  She died on the Monday. 

One of the Ladies from the Parish shared two lovely stories about Mum at the rosary.   One was when she went to give Mum communion one day, the Resthome were preparing for an outing in the van and found they had one person too many, Rose suggested she take Mum for a drive, so she took her to her second home – the Church, after Mum checked the brass on the door and the candlesticks to see if they were up to scratch, Rose had to leave the room for something and when she returned found Mum sitting on the step with the polishing rag and candlesticks beside her. The second story was Rose had some holy water in a bottle and when Mum’s leg flicked up she copped the lot – Mum was especially blessed that day!

Mum had a lovely service, Barry and I wanted to have a “mini” mass because around 95% of our friends and relatives are not Catholics, (or Catholics who have fallen by the way-side, like us), therefore the dreaded hour long service would be met with many grizzles, but we kept it bright and cheerful, with bright music and spring flowers, so no one noticed the hour fly by!  We knew Mum would have wanted the mass – who were we thinking of! A bright sunny day for a bright sunny Lady! 

Before Mum went into the Resthome, she signed papers to say she would donate her brain to the Auckland University Neurological Department, this was always a worry to me, but with the help of the Rest home’s Doctor (we gave Mum’s one away), things went very smoothly indeed, she even organised the biopsy to be carried out in Hastings and not Palmerston North as originally thought. Professor Faull phoned me the day before he left for Canada, offering his sympathy and informing me he was taking a piece of Mum’s brain with him to have tests carried out they can’t do here. We should have the results in about 6 months time.

Mum will rest peacefully now, (when she’s not dancing with the angels) she deserved it.

Lyn Crabbe