Still fighting - Elizabeth’s story

I have a big family. I have two sisters- Jenny and Louise. I keep in touch with Jenny and her husband Adrian very much. I don’t get to see them, only when I go out for dinner and I see Linda when I go to visit and see comes to see me when she gets a chance. I have lots of nieces and nephews.

Where I’ve lived

I was still living with my sister Jenny, I was coming in by minibus with. Julie told me that the Ryan’s father had died. So she brought me into the Dublin Road. Then I got a very sore foot and had to go into Comb house. I was there for a few weeks and when I got better I came in to bed rest.

There was a leak in the roof. A girl came, then I was moved to Teach Garmin. We left the house. Went to Clonee and I was there seven year. We were happy with the house, so they looked for another house, where we are living in the town. I am living with two other people.

Mammy got sick

Jenny brought Mammy to her own doctor, and she said she had Alzheimer’s. She had to be minded very carefully. Before she came up she went to the solicitor and took administration to put the land in her name.

Mammy was in a wheelchair because she couldn’t walk, she wasn’t able to walk, she‘d use a walking aid. Her walking left her along with the Alzheimer’s. We were at a wedding, and we had a wheelchair’ cause she wasn’t able to walk so they got a wheelchair for her.

I was with Mam, I wasn’t in the day service. I was helping to mind her and bring her in and out to the toilet, and she used to be able to climb up the stairs, and when she lost that power, Jenny used to have a little room at the back of the kitchen where she slept downstairs. I used live with Jenny and look after Mammy. And then I came in, ‘cause I had the sore foot.

Looking after Mammy (Click here to watch the video)

Before I went to Jenny’s I lived with my Mam and Dad, in Galway. Galway’s my home town. But when I was on my own with Mam, Jenny said I wouldn’t be able, she would have been too hard to mind. Like when I was living with her, she happened to fall down the stairs one night on me. Going to the bathroom, I just happened to be in the room and I heard her. I came down and she was at the bottom where there was a tiled floor, a red tiled floor. And she had hit the tiled floor, so I had to call an ambulance.

So I phoned out, I called the ambulance and I had to go in the ambulance with her. And I brought her into casualty, so they kept her and then the ambulance brought me back home. Well I was pretty shaken because I had to do everything, so my sister in-law brought me up on Sunday for the day, and she brought me in to see her.
I got an awful fright. I don’t know how she fell down the stairs, I found her at the bottom of the stairs so, she was lucky to be alive. She didn’t break her neck or something.

Mum died….

When I was in Trabolgan with the service. I rang Jenny to find out how Mam was. I was on my way home. When I got back to the house I got news that Mam had died. I had to go out that night, to Jenny, to Jenny that night, to see her and had to pick out earrings. Mammy died in 2000, I was still in here, but there was 4 days a week and looking forward to take a second day off.

Going on holidays

We were down in Cork. We were just down for our holidays and we took a house down in Kinsale, just outside Cork town. We stayed there for about five days or more. In a bar in Cork we were, so we had a few drinks.

We went to Killarney with staff and went to Galway too. So I’m hoping to go to Jersey with staff, and we are hoping to plan day trips.

Going to An Grianan.

I was in An Grianan, in County Louth. A group of us attended courses, and we had our picture taken with the National President of the ICA (Irish Country Women’s Association). It’s two or three years since we were there. It was lovely, we were there for say a week, we came home on the Friday and we learned about flowers, dried flowers. It was Christmas and we were doing all dried flowers. There was other crafts going on as well, and there was tapestry and different groups were doing different things but we were doing dried flower arranging.

The workshop (Click here to watch the video)

We went to the workshop in 1990. In the old workshop there was a sewing room, the main kitchen, woodwork room and there was a room where they made ribbons. We put them together and we were called to a meeting upstairs to be told that a new programme was starting and would we like to go to it. It’s called the NRB program and we were in that for four years. I did vocation on the computer, and gardening. On Thursday we did crafts. And we got Fetac for them all.

In the workshop there was the old sewing room and we used to make ties and sell them for sale. We used to have sewing and we made all sorts of ties for teddies, and different things for selling. That went when the new program came up, and I used to be in that. I was moved from the old sewing room upstairs to where they made ribbon rings back to apply ribbon. And they put ribbon on them.

I was sent down from that to the main kitchen. I was there for a few years and then this other new came up and we stayed on that for four years. We didn’t get certification but we went to do different things, we went to computers and we went to the kitchen for cooking.

I get a disability cheque every week, so that and then there’s a dinner. I get my dinner in there every day, that’s taken out of it and then we have a tea break, at 10.15 of cup of tea and scone. And then we have our dinner. We do lots of crafts, with the Certification, and those crafts, and we made little mosaics, or tiles and the small bits of tiles, I’m able to design on them. And I learned to do decoupage, so I made a few pictures of that and all that.

Well I’m still there, I’m doing different things, I’m doing embroidery. And I’m doing, I’m starting a new programme. And I’m doing… I’m making jewellery. And then we used to do Christmas decorations. And we did a knitting programme as well.

Disability

I have Spina Bifada. When Mammy was having me up in the hospital, in the Rotunda in Dublin- we were all born up there. The gynaecologist doctor should have done a Caesarean Section on me, when Mammy was trying to have me. They were trying to deliver me and the doctor done damage to me spine. So I have a spinal problem. So that was the gynaecologist’s fault.

I was able to walk and play around and play for a good few year. And all of a sudden I had to get mobility systems like a walking aid, and an electric bed. I’m a few year suffering with a very bad pain in me back and me hips. And down this left leg. And I have varicose veins. I still have them but I’m on different tablets to help me out so that’s alright.

Helping other people

I was always very kind hearted to people. When Jenny and Louise got married, shortly after my dad died, a few years since they got married I was in town doing shopping for Mam. Before I was going home I said I would just go and get a cup of tea. I was going by the AIB bank and when I saw a man being pushed on the ground. A Garda was in the sort of shoe shop and I ran up and he had seen what happened.

Two years ago in October, I was at the fair show walking up to get my moped. I was walking by the Emerald Bar Room and I felt a thump on my back, and looked around and I was after stopping another man coming face first to the ground.

Still fighting (Click here to watch the video)

I’m trying to get my share of my mother’s will, place. But don’t think I’m going to get it. It hurt me a lot. I worked hard on the land, the same as Jenny and Louise. It hurt me a lot when I’m not being told anything. I am very down in myself. People I know could not do this to me, because they knew mw a lot, but I get on with people in the other houses I was in.

The staff are telling me to talk to them. But how can I talk when I don’t know what to say? I know sometimes people don’t understand but I have a lot of pain and my walking is not very good.

The solicitor I have don’t tell me anything, and that’s not fair on me. I am entitled to know, people notice I am not myself. I know they say it very much in work but they know I am not myself I am fighting it, well I am fighting hard with it.

I’m getting on well. I go down the town and I do my own bit for meself, and I meet my sister for lunch and I do me own banking, and I do my own thing, when I have to go down and get me drugs and do me own thing. Sometimes I walk down, sometimes I get a taxi down, if the weather’s bad and I do things round the house, I help them clean up, and tidy up, and make my own bed and put my clothes away when there washed and keep me room very tidy and respectable. And I’m getting me room sorted out now, so hopefully I’ll be happy there. I’m not a year in it yet now, I’m only a few months. So I’m happy with the ladies I’m with.

I go to active retirement on a Thursday night and we’re doing a cooking course now for eight weeks in the school. We do different things, we cook tarts and we’re going to do complicated things now, we did pizza last night and we’re going to do coffee cake next week. We’ve made apple crumble and we’ve made chocolate cake and we made homemade soup and that’s how far we’ve got now. So we’ve only three weeks to go and we’ll see what she’s going to give us to do after that. So there’s a jewellery class meant to be coming up in the school and I might like to do the jewellery making. Cause I’m interested in it.

Down to mam’s grave.

We’re waiting to get up a headstone for her, ‘cause she’s eight year dead now this year in June, the 13th of June, so she’ll be eight years dead. And hopefully we’ll get a headstone up to her.

We went to the pictures one night and I went to Ballinasloe one night as well and we spent a few hours down there, so we go different places when anything’s on. And hopefully now I’ll be going on a boat trip. I was asked to go on a boat trip in June and a barbeque. My sister and Sarah asked me would I like to go and then I might like to go on holiday on a boat trip somewhere, so hopefully. I’m looking forward to different things, a bit of hot weather, sun.

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