Aftermath (5 page)

There was very little English spoken in that part of Japan and it was a challenge for her girls to even buy food in the local shops. They told Kerry about all the children in the hospital and Kerry wished she was well enough to visit them. She asked them to buy presents for the youngsters which of course were received with much delight.

One day, while Saoirse and Emer were out, a strong wind rose suddenly. It made loud, eerie noises just like the sound of the wind after the tsunami struck. Kerry was petrified that something had happened to her daughters and that they wouldn't return. She was sobbing hysterically when they finally came back safe and sound.

The nights were very difficult for Kerry. She would often wake up screaming and her daughters would try their best to comfort her and hold her until her nightmares subsided. She hated them seeing her in such a state and tried to insist that they go and stay with Maura in the hotel, but they resolutely refused. They weren't going to leave her alone and that was final!

Kerry couldn't stop thinking about Conor. Over and over again she asked herself;
where is he?
Maura told her, many months later, that she'd been very concerned because
she didn't talk about Conor. Kerry
knew she didn't bring him up much because she wanted to believe one hundred per cent that he was safe. She thought if she didn't say anyth
ing aloud, somehow
he would be okay. Maura knew that not talkin
g about Conor wasn't good for her sister
. She brought up his name mo
re and more and began to ask her
about him
and tell her the story of how they
fell in love, which of course she'd already heard a hundred times, but wanted to hear again. So Kerry slowly began to talk about Conor. She talked and talked and it was such a relief.

Kerry was on intravenous drips and having many different blood tests. She was quite woozy from the morphine at times, but she had to have it, otherwise the pain was just too much for her to endure. Her legs were still tied up and her stomach was becoming even more distended. She had a CAT scan and after that they put tubes through her nose and into her stomach and then attached them to a machine by her bed. It was very uncomfortable. She couldn't breathe, or swallow and it reduced her to tears. It was one of the few times she cried because she felt sorry for herself. She was on the machine for two days and it was awful! The machine made strange noises and the tube was bringing up all sorts of disgusting fluids, draining the poisons out of her body. It was painful, but her stomach started to reduce.

When they did a follow-up CAT scan, they saw that all the bleeding in her stomach and a h
a
ematoma in her kidney had been reduced to tiny spot of blood in her lower right abdomen. Maura was in the computer room when the doctors were examining the images from Kerry's CAT scan. They were amazed at what they saw and they called her over to see. Maura peered at the image, not really understanding what she was supposed to be looking at.

“What
is it?” she asked them. “Is it her brain?”

“No, it's her kidney,” the doctor explained.

He showed her the other images too and shook his head in disbelief.

“It's unbelievable how fast your sister has recovered,” he said. “It's truly amazing. How
is she healing so quickly?”

Later, Kerry explained to her sister that she was simply using her energy, concentrating it on healing her body and sending it out to help C
onor and all the other victims.

Kerry
was thrilled when Nuala
came to visit her unexpectedly. I
t was so good to see her. Nuala
had learned through her contacts in the media that a large amount of money was being offered for Kerry's photograph. Someone said it was as high as a hundred thousand euro! Kerry couldn't believe it. She was know
n
in literary circles for her writing achievements but she certainly wasn't famous or remotely a “celebrity.” However, the world seemed to have become fascinated by her story and that of her family. Photographers were trying to sneak into the hospital to snap photos of her and security guards were positioned outside her door to keep them out.

“Maybe you should let them take your photo,” Nuala suggested tentatively one morning when she'd beaten a path through the photographers to her room. “Your photograph might help to find Conor. You could ask if anyone has seen him and who knows who might happen to read the newspaper and might just know some information about him.”

Reluctantly, Kerry agreed. She'd do anything to find her husband but giving her story and photo to the media somehow seemed gratuitous to her. Nuala took her pic
t
ure and
the
photo was sent around
the world. The photo was quite striking
and man
y people wanted to know who had taken
it. They assumed it was the work of a professional photographer. Kerry joked that Nuala could have a second career.

Kerry was smiling in the photo. She really had a serene feeling
at the time
, like
there was a light within her
. Look, her smiled seemed to say, how wonderful it is to be alive! She was, in fact, starting to feel much better. The tube was out of her nose and although her legs remained up and tied together, the bed was electric, so she could chan
ge positions.

Sophie was
on the phone to her
every day, checking
on her progress. She was constantly talking to the doctors in Ireland and relaying their
recommendations to Maura and Kerry
. Based on the doctors
’
advice, Sophie told Maura that it was im
perative to regularly massage Kerry’s
legs in order to keep the blood flowing to them.
Sophie and Emer helped to rub her
feet and arms too.

The calls kept co
ming. Aunt Aisling and Uncle Sean w
anted to come out to see her right away but although Kerry longed to see them she knew it would be too much for them. She knew she'd be worried about them and it was important that she remained totally focused on herself and her recovery. When they continued to insist on flying out she almost gave in but she caught herself and said that she would see them when she went to the hospital in Cork. It was such a relief that they listened to he
r
. She knew that she was surrounded by love and best wishes from everyone and although of course it meant a lot to her to have such loving friends and family, she still hadn't heard anything from her beloved Conor.

The doctors were coming and going, checking on her all the time. She was getting better
every day but
she was still being fed intravenously. Somehow, she had settled into a daily routine. She was
on
drips for a long time, being fed intravenously, and every morning she was getting morphine injections and having blood taken. Then the nurses would wash her. They were very
gentle
and so kind and they were always smiling; but they insisted on taking her blanket to wash it. She protested for as long as she could. The grubby blanket had been on quite a journey with her and she had bonded with it in the same way that she imagined a small child loved their blanket. That dirty old piece of material had become her “blankie.” Eventually, after much resistance, she relented and the nurses took away her blankie for washing. They removed her precious securi
ty blanket, cleaned it, folded i
t and returned it to her freshly laundered. She never used it again, but she knew that she would keep it forever.

Everyone
wanted to know how she was feeling and if the pain had improved much. She hated constantly talking about it but it was such a huge part of her daily life that she couldn't help it. Despite the morphine and other strong painkillers, nothing could completely eradicate the incessant hurting. The night terrors were the worst thing for her, much worse than the physical agony. When she closed her eyes she would see the swirling, rising waters and whenever there w
as a loud noise she became
terribly frightened because she was immediately reminded of the eerie, crashing
,
roaring sounds of the tsunami. Banging noises terrified her more than anything else. She considered herself to be a strong person but any loud noises completely unnerved her.

One particular day, her pain became unbearable. She couldn't stand the agony any longer. The nurses gave her as much medication as they could but it still wasn't enough to ease the searing pain. Maura called the doctor who came to her
sister’s
bedside immediately. He asked her to describe the pain, to tell him exactly what she was feeling and when she had finished he thought for a while before finally speaking.

“Kerry
,” the wise doctor said. “Sometimes pain seems like it's much worse than it actually is. Pain is never that big. It's our minds that make it so much bigger. You must try to focus on something else; anything other than the pain. Think about objects, or people, or happy memories, or plans that you might have for the future. The pain will get easier and slowly subside. It's important that you remain cheerful and don't drift into sadness; otherwise you will become sad and depressed. You must try your best to be happy and remain positive, because when you are positive you will heal much faster.”

The doctor's advice was so simple that Kerry decided to take it. His advice reminded her of the visualisation technique that she so regularly used in her own energy and meditation work. If she wante
d something to happen she would
imagine it happening
,
which she believed was a great he
lp in
achieving her goals. She had used the technique when she'd decided to run a marathon. She'd pictured herself running over the finishing line and when the big race day arrived she'd successfully run that marathon. She'd used the technique when she was being battered by the tsunami's waves and she'd willed herself to survive and cling to her life-saving tree. She'd willed herself to hold on and imagined herself full of strength to search for Conor and Saoirse.

So she began to remember all the wonderful people in her life; past and present. Pictures ran through her mind of when she and Maura were little girls and living with their a
unt and uncle. Aunt Aisling
giving her and Maura a bath in their huge tub, sponging them with warm, soapy water and washing their hair with her camomile shampoo. She saw her grandparents and the beautiful forest behind their house. She saw her aunts, her uncles, her grandparents, her children when they were tiny babies and the wonderful Ballycotton House. She thought about all her friends who cared about her and who had been so kind to her. She pictured all their smiling, loving faces and she felt truly loved and blessed. She thought about all the people in Japan who were so kind and giving; but most of all, she thoug
ht about Conor, and her mind
flooded with so many beautiful memories of their lives together. She imagined the day they would be reunited and how there would be an even stronger bond between them because they had survived such a nightmare. It would bring them so close that nothing would ever tear them apart again. She fell asleep dreaming of Conor and the next day, for the first time in weeks, she had no pain. She went off the morphine and the pills and began controlling everything with her mind.

Every day after that was a little victory for her. She started to move her legs apart from nothing to several centimetres. She still kept them drawn up most of the time because it was more comfortable, but it was comforting to know that she was able to move them if she really wanted.

Her wonderful sister took over the task of washing her every day and became her own private nurse. After many weeks, the day arrived when she was well enough to have her hair washed. It was sheer bliss! The nurses, helped by her sister, put a basin on her bed and washed her hair, which was thick with mud. It was her first shampoo since the tsunami and such a glorious feeling. Emer and Saoirse even took photos of her with her clean, wet hair!

The speed of her recovery truly amazed the doctors and they called it a miracle. She was skin and bones after everything that she'd endured but she didn't care. It fascinated Saoirse to see the scars on her mother's face and body fading away
so quickly
.

The day arrived when she was well enough to move on. She needed to be in a hospital where they could further assess her condition. Most importantly, she needed to start walking again. She couldn't wait to get back to Cork and see her beloved aunt and uncle again. Maura made all the arrangemen
ts to fly her home
. She couldn't change flights and because there were no direct flights from Japan to Cork, the insurance company provided a special plane for her.

The flight left late at night and all the doctors and nurses, even those who were officially off duty, came to say goodbye and wave her off. A doctor and nurse rode in the ambulance with Kerry and he
r family. The doctor reminded her
not to drift into sadness. She felt odd about leaving Japan, happy and sad at the same time. Of course, she was happy to be returning home to Cork, at last, but she was also heartbroken to be leaving Conor behind. There was still no news of him, but she remained hopeful, the alternative was too unbearable.