This time last year, almost to the hour, I was preparing to close down my house for the drive down to Royal North Shore Public hospital in Sydney. Unknown to me my husband had already been signed up for surgery late in the evening of the night before, when he was exhausted from the trip. I know that the Doctor who "explained" the surgery had such limited English that Don would have been unable to fully understand what he was told...but I doubt that that mongrel told him of any risks anyway...we met him later and had to ask a nurse to translate.

Those of you who have been on this journey with me have really helped a lot. Too often in the wee small hours rather than share the night with the nightmares I have been left with, I get up and walk about, blog a bit etc. Hopefully there will come a time when the myriad images which circulate inside my head continually will ease and one day I will sleep as I used to do.

In only a few short hours they will do the surgery which led directly to his death and to the five weeks of his torture and abuse.

You see in my head it is still happening as if it is in present tense. Tried grief counselling, and she was good, but she even admitted it was a bit more than what she knew about. What I feel isn't grief alone. That natural and awful thing would be a blessing... I could deal with that. What I feel is a deep horror that these things could be done, to one so helpless as my husband. That they could be done to him and covered up by people society protects and even respects. I could even handle it if he had died soon after the first arrest... I would still be seeking justice for that but it still breaks my heart to know I couldn't protect or stop his torture and abuse. I couldn't stop one day of it, one week and certainly not the five weeks.

There are things I can't describe because I don't really have the words for them. I recall times when I would come into the room early in the day and he would have a wild trapped animal look in his eyes and would have pulled himself up almost sitting by the restraints...hallucinating; and the nurse would say it'd been like this for hours. When I was there he would settle a bit. They buggered about so much with his oxygen levels and medications you never knew what you were going to find. I wish now I had had the courage to help him die as he, wanted to but I didn't want to see him go through the horrible build up to another respiratory arrest. I just couldn't do it and I know he wouldn't have wanted me to carry that, because likely as not the kids would have lost two parents.

Yesterday a huge bunch of flowers arrived from the kids... they are going through their own individual nightmares and all we can do for each other is to talk it out...I hold back a bit from the worst with them because I am the mother, but I know how they are feeling.

I know all the stuff...like "time will heal" and I know it does. I never thought I'd recover from my Mum and Dad's deaths, but as years passed I did. This is entirely different. As far as we are concerned Don was killed by them. In the process of that killing he was tortured by their grotesque parody of modern medicine. His abuse was shocking and prolonged. Relatives of murdered people must feel like this, because whether their intent to kill was there or not, once they botched it they kept him alive to cover up. To put a great distance between the event and the death. This is not uncommon when things have gone horribly wrong. Now they hide behind a dirty corrupt system which allows them to do what they want to us when we go into their standing coffins of hospitals.

There's gold in them thar research blocks and thats about what was going on ...research. Here they had a middle aged Quadriplegic... of long duration (25yrs) with multiple medical problems... hmmm... he arrives late in the evening with nary a relative in sight. Hmmm. 'What can we do "for" (to) him do you reckon? His quality of life must be shit... doesn't seem to be anyone about who'll kick up a stink ... sign him up quick.'

When Don was neglected enough to have that first arrest...and arrived in ICU... we were told that they encourage all those who arrive in ICU to partake in a study called "NICE" (can you believe that name).. its to do with Insulin levels and shock etc.

They told us that those who took part in this had a better chance of survival because they would be having their blood checked more regularly. Sounded good. But what did we know? We didn't hold out hope of survival but they kept holding out these slivers of hope...which was wrong of them. I started to notice after a week or so that he would be given the odd bag of blood. My sister couldn't understand this as he had no internal bleeding.

Near the end I was there when a doc and nurse came in to him in a hurry and attached a bag of blood and physically squeezed/that into him by pushing on the bag and rolling it a bit. They seemed panicky. I asked them what was wrong and was just told that he needed this and now. The way my head was, much of the time although I appeared okay on the surface, most of the time I felt like I was walking through a murky kind of fog. As soon as they did that bag they came in with another and did the same. My sister (a nurse) who was back home in Brisbane couldn't believe this, but I saw this with my own eyes.

I believe but can't prove this, but I believe that the amount of bloods they were taking out for their filthy research, Don who was dying just couldn't make back up again and it was things like this which increased his suffering. Thats just one thing.

The reason I didn't know, is because I didn't know the right questions to ask, and they never volunteered information. But sometimes I did ask the right questions... hit the nail on the head with them, one doctor became openly aggressive towards me in front of my daughter Melissa. Others just muddied the waters with their so called answers.

Sorry people, if you got this far... I'm a pretty happy little Vegemite mostly, but I just feel so traumatised by what I am carrying around inside my head... I just had to get it out.

Those little smart arse pricks who collectively killed and tortured Don probably sleep the smug sleep of the self satisfied and righteous. And I know if there is an after life that I wouldn't want to be dying with what they have done on their souls. I honestly don't think that they even consider that they have done anything wrong. They always seem so surprised when someone attempts to call them to account... as if they were Hippocrates himself... more like Hypocrites... pretty close those two words...what did the ancient Greeks know hm?

I'm about spent for now... it'll be daylight soon and the sky will lighten, the birds will begin carolling in the day. My lovely old smelly Kelpie will wander out to go outside (he smells because its been raining)... I'll go out with him and wander up the long path as I always do...I am a morning person anyway thank goodness... I can go out in the dawn and look at my flowers and the sky and take pleasure in it. One day I will be able to do just that and nothing else. For now beneath the pleasure there's the darker stuff and it is in my head all the time...

I think I am dealing with things as I am meant to do for the girls and I. I'm not going crazy... just having normal reactions to horrible and abnormal things.