The Elephant In The Room

I think it's time for me to address the elephant in the room.. or more the media, which is the article the Daily Mail printed. If you haven't seen it you can find it on google. It is a very accurate article compared to all the rest out there, bar one misprint, but instead of focusing the story on Dylan's recovery they also focused it on me..

"My guilt at giving up on my dying son: Kerry wanted to let doctors turn off their son Dylan’s life support against her husband’s wishes.... but then he became the 'boy who came back from the dead'"

Firstly, I did not WANT to let the doctors turn off life support, what mother in their right mind would want that?!! Following the article I had some vile messages from people that hadn't taken the time to read on past that point and thought of me as a bad mother evidently. This really hurt me at the time and coupled with a few other issues such as friends turning their backs on me and a few sleepless nights with Logan I was in a bad place for a while.

The truth is.. I thought my son was suffering! I was told he was dying and convinced repeatedly by nurses that we were potentially being selfish and cruel. They even told us of stories where they have had to take parents to court that refused to accept their children were only being kept alive by machines. Of course I didn't want to lose him I was completely heartbroken. I kept reading story after story of miracle recoveries and hoped with all my heart for one but I couldn't bare the thought of watching him go in to sudden cardiac arrest and felt letting him slip away peacefully was more humane. They had talked to us above how it would all go ahead and all the ceremonial aspects and support etc. I felt there was no other option besides sitting there and waiting for his heart to stop which felt wrong.

Unless you have been in our shoes then you cannot possibly understand, it is like literally being torn in two.. you want to fight every single second until there is no fight left because you cannot comprehend the thought of life without them but you also love them so much that you'd rather put yourself through the heartbreak of losing them than watch them suffer and cause them any more pain unnecessarily just for your own selfish needs. I just didn't want him to suffer anymore because he is my baby and I love him and that is the beginning and end of it all.

Yes I did and still do sometimes feel guilty knowing now that he did fight back in the end BUT had we not taken that first step and stopped the muscle relaxant we wouldn't have known he needed more sedation and with a heart rate of 200+ it was a miracle he made it through the night before, he WOULD have gone into cardiac arrest had it remained that high much longer and he would NOT be here today. So truthfully in taking that step towards turning life support off we probably saved his life and that is what I try to take from it all now and I refuse to be defined as the mother who 'feels guilty' or 'wanted to take her son off life support' because I am so much more than those labels!!