9/11 - The 20th Anniversary

"I had just been released from hospital the day before and was still on sick leave. My father called me on the phone and told me to turn on the TV at once because there was something going on in America. Swedish television was broadcasting live.

Just a few seconds after I had turned on the TV-set - and before I understood what was going on - the television screen showed a passenger airplane flying suspiciously low close to the tower that had been hit first. Then I saw the plane steering right into the second tower, flames erupting around the hole that had been caused in the structure halfway up on the building.

I was baffled, shocked, sad, angry, and frightened. After seeing that I remained in front of the television all that day and well into the night to follow the news. There were many speculations concerning the number of casualties, so once the true numbers were released, I was strangely relieved that they were much lower than the initial speculations. 

2,977 people died in the attacks (and 19 hijackers committed murder–suicide), and more than 6,000 others were wounded, it's a scary thought that I could feel relief at such a high toll.

In my mind's timeline there will always be a before or after 9/11, Everything changed, or at least my outlook on everything changed."

(The above has previously been posted in 9/11 - In Memoriam.)

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We must also always remember that the terrorists are an extremely small minority in any community, religious group, or society. In the words of the American president Barack Obama, "We don’t differentiate between them and us. It’s just us."

Mother

I just got off the phone with my mother. She called me, crying, and told me she could not take it any longer."He didn't sleep here last night and he hasn't been home all day. He must be with her, I don't understand why he is doing this to me..."

The man she is talking about is my father, who passed away on January 28, 2015.

I tried to get mother calm. I reminded her that she was there when father died and saw when he was given CPR and when he took his last breath. "Yes", she confirmed "I remember all that, but where are these strange thoughts coming from? Why am I thinking of this woman and there being something to do with your father?" We talked on about how they had been married for almost 65 years. How my father loved her very much, and she him from the beginning when they met until the end. How he never ever slept away from her during all those years, if he could help it.

Mother was calm again when we finished and was going to bed, because she was feeling very tired.

I can with absolute knowledge say, that if my father had had an affair and had moved out of the house we in the family would all know. Mine is not a family in which one is allowed to keep such things secret, not for very long and we all get involved in the end - always.

This has been going on for about six weeks, not constantly, but from time to time. At first we - my older sister and I - didn't understand what the hell was going on and we put it down to grief. After a while we were told that hallucinations and a change of mental status sometimes can be the only visible symptoms of a urinary tract infection (UTI) in elderly people.

Last Friday I took my mother to the doctor for a checkup. The checkup showed no signs of a UTI so that wasn't the cause of the strange thoughts. What was discovered through a blood count test was that my mother had acute anemia. Her hemoglobin count was only 72 g/L (normal (121 to 151 g/L). The doctor believed that this could - possibly - account for mother's strange thoughts and hallucinations.

Mother was immediately admitted to hospital, with many protests and the promise it would only be overnight, and was given three bags of blood.

The reason for the anemia still remains unclear and is going to be investigated without hospitalization, as that is the only way my mother will accept.

It would seem that the blood transfusions haven't helped, not yet anyway. The whole thing makes me very sad and unhappy.