{"id":942,"date":"2021-09-12T12:29:22","date_gmt":"2021-09-12T12:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=942"},"modified":"2021-09-12T12:30:44","modified_gmt":"2021-09-12T12:30:44","slug":"not-my-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/not-my-blood\/942\/","title":{"rendered":"Not my blood."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mum lay on the hospital bed with tubes coming off her. Nurses rushed around, plugged in equipment, pulled over a wheeled table with scalpels, sucking things, an I.V. beeps and boops and machines whirred like sirens. The sight of her turned me to jelly. I wished with all my heart that I hadn’t said those words. ‘I wish you were dead!’ It made me feel sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The doctor pulled me outside. ‘She’s refusing to take blood.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I clutched my head and tried my best to calm my breathing. ‘She’s a Jehovah’s Witness. It’s against her beliefs.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The doctor gripped my shoulder. ‘Listen, she is going to die unless she has blood. I know you are only sixteen, but you are her next to kin. You can overrule her decision. It’ll be entirely your responsibility. We can’t give her blood without your permission.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ‘She’ll hate me. She really believes in that shit. Can’t you do anything else?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ‘A blood transfusion is her only hope. She has internal bleeding and is in a critical condition. The decision has to be now.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I looked at her pale face beneath the tubes. A nurse lifted her arm to push in a needle into her vein. She looked dead already. It was too much to bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

            ‘Do it. Give her blood.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Hours later, Mum’s eyes opened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I squeezed her hand gently. ‘Mum?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ‘What’s going on?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ‘You’ve been in a little accident. But it’s okay. You’re going to be alright.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            She frowned at the tube coming out of her arm and looked up at the I.V full of water. ‘Where am I?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ‘Hospital.’ I put my other hand over hers and held it tight. ‘I’m so sorry for what I said. It was horrible. I didn’t mean it. I’ll never say anything like that again. I love you, Mum.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            She looked at the blue sky through the window. Two swallows danced together and shimmered under golden sunshine. Her face lightened up. She seemed grateful to be alive. I was grateful too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            She gasped and looked at me. ‘They didn’t give me blood, did they?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I winced. ‘It was the only way to save your life.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            She yanked her hand out of my grasp. ‘You idiot! You know I don’t accept blood. How could you do this?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ‘How? Because I don’t want you to die.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ‘I thought I could trust you. What do you think Jehovah will say?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ‘I don’t believe in the bible. And I don’t want you to die. You’re my mum!’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            She scoffed and looked away. ‘You’ve betrayed me. I can’t forgive you. You should leave. And I don’t want you to be there when I get home.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             I took a deep breath and stood up. ‘I thought you’d hate me, but I had to make that sacrifice. I know you believe in your bible. But I’d rather you be alive and hate me than you be dead. I know you won’t understand what that means, but I had no choice.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ‘I told you to leave.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mum lay on the hospital bed with tubes coming off her. Nurses rushed around, plugged in equipment, pulled over a wheeled table with scalpels, sucking things, an I.V. beeps and boops and machines whirred like sirens. The sight of her turned me to jelly. I wished with all my heart that I hadn’t said those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[379,530],"tags":[539,537,538,540],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-379","category-you-cant-pick-your-family","tag-blood-transfusions","tag-jehovah-witness","tag-accident","tag-not-my-blood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-fc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions\/948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}