family update
Aug. 13th, 2023 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaMy cousin got in touch at last this week. It's been five months since her mother died, five months of almost total silence. The timing of her message is interesting to me - it was her son's second birthday last weekend, and the family unanimously decided to send him birthday cards and gifts as if nothing had happened, as if his mother hadn't been ghosting the entire family for all those months -it's not his fault, after all - and apparently heaping those coals of fire upon her head worked, because just a couple of days later she created a new WhatsApp family group and fired off an update message.
The gist of the message was that Lesley died of sepsis due to leg cellulitis - which is pretty much what we'd inferred already from our understanding of her final illness. Vee says however that this was secondary to a primary innumodeficiency that she'd had from birth, but was not diagnosed until she was 76 years old, just a few months before she died - too late for treatment to make any difference. After her death she was referred to the coroner for a thorough investigation, Vee says - reading between the lines, I believe more than ever now that this was at Vee's own instigation. If a patient with a known immunodeficiency dies of sepsis from leg cellulitis, that seems fairly definitive cause of death to me, what more is there to uncover? Vee doesn't include the outcome of this investigation in her message, from which I can only infer that nothing else sinister was found. Unless she is fudging the timeline and the immunodeficiency wasn't diagnosed during her lifetime at all, but was the outcome of the post-mortem investigation, with Vee pushing for an investigation because she was so sure there was a root cause for her mother's lifetime of ill health, perhaps.
Either way, Vee concludes by saying that Lesley had a direct cremation with no attendees on 21 July, exactly one week before Vee gave birth to her second child at home on the living room floor, a little girl - and she sent a picture, the baby looks very sweet. Her name is Tembely, which means baby elephant - that's a tribute to Lesley, who adored elephants and had little elephant ornaments and pictures all over her house.
So. Pregnancy hormones presumably played a part in the whole sad saga, but I'm sorry, I still see no reason whatsoever why either Vee or her husband couldn't have informed the family from the start that there were question marks over Lesley's underlying cause of death that needed to be investigated in depth, that there would be a delay before anything more was known and they would let us know in due course. Such a simple message to send, and it would have spared the entire family months of heartache, not knowing what was going on or why the funeral was delayed.
Not that there was any funeral, after all. It was what I feared from the start, only worse. Direct cremation with no attendees - not even her own daughter! I could weep at the thought of it. Lesley was so gregarious, so open-hearted, was loved by so many people, and attending the funerals of loved ones was so important to her. She would have wanted a funeral. She would have wanted her loved ones there, to say goodbye to her. I don't understand why even Vee herself didn't attend to see her on her way. And it was only three weeks ago! I would have travelled to London for it, we all would have travelled to London for it, if only we'd been allowed.
So now we're all back to the status quo: pretending like Vee's behaviour hasn't been atrocious because no one likes to be the one to send her off the deep end. When I'm feeling less upset and less cross I will ask if she intends to hold a memorial service down the line, or if she feels like she has said her goodbyes already.
And while I'm on my holidays in Devon this week (leaving tomorrow) I suppose I will have to look out for a present for the new baby...
The gist of the message was that Lesley died of sepsis due to leg cellulitis - which is pretty much what we'd inferred already from our understanding of her final illness. Vee says however that this was secondary to a primary innumodeficiency that she'd had from birth, but was not diagnosed until she was 76 years old, just a few months before she died - too late for treatment to make any difference. After her death she was referred to the coroner for a thorough investigation, Vee says - reading between the lines, I believe more than ever now that this was at Vee's own instigation. If a patient with a known immunodeficiency dies of sepsis from leg cellulitis, that seems fairly definitive cause of death to me, what more is there to uncover? Vee doesn't include the outcome of this investigation in her message, from which I can only infer that nothing else sinister was found. Unless she is fudging the timeline and the immunodeficiency wasn't diagnosed during her lifetime at all, but was the outcome of the post-mortem investigation, with Vee pushing for an investigation because she was so sure there was a root cause for her mother's lifetime of ill health, perhaps.
Either way, Vee concludes by saying that Lesley had a direct cremation with no attendees on 21 July, exactly one week before Vee gave birth to her second child at home on the living room floor, a little girl - and she sent a picture, the baby looks very sweet. Her name is Tembely, which means baby elephant - that's a tribute to Lesley, who adored elephants and had little elephant ornaments and pictures all over her house.
So. Pregnancy hormones presumably played a part in the whole sad saga, but I'm sorry, I still see no reason whatsoever why either Vee or her husband couldn't have informed the family from the start that there were question marks over Lesley's underlying cause of death that needed to be investigated in depth, that there would be a delay before anything more was known and they would let us know in due course. Such a simple message to send, and it would have spared the entire family months of heartache, not knowing what was going on or why the funeral was delayed.
Not that there was any funeral, after all. It was what I feared from the start, only worse. Direct cremation with no attendees - not even her own daughter! I could weep at the thought of it. Lesley was so gregarious, so open-hearted, was loved by so many people, and attending the funerals of loved ones was so important to her. She would have wanted a funeral. She would have wanted her loved ones there, to say goodbye to her. I don't understand why even Vee herself didn't attend to see her on her way. And it was only three weeks ago! I would have travelled to London for it, we all would have travelled to London for it, if only we'd been allowed.
So now we're all back to the status quo: pretending like Vee's behaviour hasn't been atrocious because no one likes to be the one to send her off the deep end. When I'm feeling less upset and less cross I will ask if she intends to hold a memorial service down the line, or if she feels like she has said her goodbyes already.
And while I'm on my holidays in Devon this week (leaving tomorrow) I suppose I will have to look out for a present for the new baby...
no subject
Date: 2023-08-14 09:09 am (UTC)Enjoy your holiday, fingers crossed for better weather!
Sue
no subject
Date: 2023-08-14 07:02 pm (UTC)Vee, whatever lesley's wishes would have been, has every right to do what she wanted - keeping everyone away and a quiet cremation for whatever reason.
But so can you.
There is absolutely nothing to stop your family arranging a big party and having it as a memorial/celebration of life for Lesley. You'll be free to personalise it and tailor it as much as you wantto what would have spoke most about Lesley.
You'll need to decide whether or not you want to invite Vee, but it might heal some of the pain associated with Lesley's loss.
I wouldn't be surprised if so called sickly people are going to be found to have underlying auto-immune issues. I'm sad she never got to have the life she deserved.
again though - hugs.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-24 11:04 am (UTC)We've talked about having some kind of memorial service ourselves, but wanted to find out from Vee what was actually going on first. Now she has said her piece, there is nothing to stop us going ahead - if anyone has the heart for organising it, at this stage. Everyone has had the stuffing knocked out of them a bit. We'll see. I think the siblings especially need it.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-14 08:21 pm (UTC)I'm sorry you've had such a bad time with this though.
Carol