Uma Eyyunni - Where Do We Belong?: A mothers cry continues..

Where Do We Belong?

A mothers cry continues..

based on a true story

Uma Eyyunni M.D

AuthorHouse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: 1-800-839-8640

2010 Uma Eyyunni M.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/19/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4490-8739-5 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-8737-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-8738-8 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010902014

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Cover design :Gokulraj Krishnan

Web design :Sri.Sagaram

www.motherscry.net

ueyyunni@gmail.com

Reviews:

A must read for every mother who has unconditional love for her children...

Uma speaks to the heart of every parent, with her story of a child possessed overnight with a harrowing illness.A must read for every mother who has unconditional love for her children.

Ava Glicksteen, Home health care provider.

Hope this is the last cry of a mother...

I want my son back is a powerful piece of fiction (I hope its not reality) and rendered very powerfully by Uma Eyyunni. The language used is very appropriate and the situations are highly appealing. The technique of connecting the incidents is superb. But the highlight of the entire novel is the emotion underlying every word, phrase and sentence.

The entire book goes in the narrative style and is expressed from the point of view of the mother who wants her son back into the normal world. The thread separating us and such persons is very thin and one does not know when it will get snapped.

The novel I want my son back should be read by every sensitive person. As a reader I hope this is the last cry of a mother and no more such cries occur.

Prof. Kanakadurga Dantu

This novel strongly impacts on the psyche of every individual who takes time off to read the same...

I want my son back is a sensitive portrayal of a mother who is tenaciously trying to get her son back to the normal psychological frame of mind. This fiction forcefully captures the travails and the struggle that both the mother and the son go through. It is the subtle depiction of the very thin dividing line between the normal and the not so normal behaviour pattern of a growing child-presented in a very lucid style by Dr.Uma Eyyunni. It also adequately speaks of the conflict between the professional and emotional contours of a very sensitive mother. This novel strongly impacts on the psyche of every individual who takes time off to read the same.

D.Chakrapani, Principal Secretary to PRC, A.P.Secretariat, Hyderabad

This book taught me to get more involved with patients families...

As a psychiatric nurse, this in depth book about the struggles that a family deals with, having a child with a mental illness ,was educational and insightful. It shed light on the fact that mental illness affects a whole family and not just the person affected . It touched my heart to read of the dedication and devotion this mother had , trying anything to help her son. Unfortunately, sometimes there are no answers for a cure and this becomes a life long battle, trying to find a glimpse of that child you once knew.This is a battle that a mother will never give up fighting. This book taught me to get more involved with patients families because I now know that they too are affected .

Jodi Lopez RN, Registered Nurse-Florida.

Contents

Acknowledgements:

I owe thanks to many people without whom this book would not have been possible. At the very outset I want to thank our children Sreekar and Swathi for their input. My special thanks to my husband, Ram, for his patience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my friends Jim, Nihal, Glen, George, Karen, Judy, Bill, Sharma, Sri and Henry for contributing valuable information about mental illness. My heart felt thanks to the many friends that encouraged this venture.

Part One:

I want my son back, a mothers cry

I WANT MY SON BACK
A Mothers Cry

Look Mom, I can fly

Said my son at age five

Sure my love, said I

Have no fear, aim for the sky!

Dad said, reach for the moon

And be sure, Ill get there soon

Said he, when he was fifteen

With hopes high and dreams clean.

What happened to me mother?

I rock and rock but go nowhere

Who clipped my wings mother

So, I cant go any further??

Dedicated to the mentally ill and their families who suffer in silence

Uma Eyyunni. M.D

Prologue

Mom, please hurry up, were late Andrew was getting restless.

I am coming honey, get in the van. I hurried picking up my purse, when the telephone rang. I hesitated for a moment. Andrews soccer practice would start in half an hour and the coach was fairly strict with the timings. Id let the answering machine pick up, I told myself. But some unknown instinct pulled me back, and I stepped into the kitchen to answer the phonenot knowing that, it would change our lives forever!

Mrs. Grove, Mrs. Anna Grove please, this is the Fairfield Hospital, said a very distinct yet kind voice.

Speaking, I said a little shakily. Oh. God, Robert! What happened to Robert? Did he have a heart attack? Is he in an accident? A hundred thoughts raced through my mind in that instant.

Maam can you please sit down, I need to talk to you.

Yes please, I did not recognize my own voice.

I am calling from the Emergency room, about your son Kevin.

Kevin? Did I hear him right? My Kevin is a healthy eighteen year old home on spring break, and spending a day with his friends. He had just started his freshman year in college.

What happened to Kevin? I asked, this time louder into the phone.

He is with us maam can you please come to the hospital? Is your husband home?

I blinked. Is my husband home, where is he?

Andrew came in stomping his feet and stopped in his tracks, seeing me. He is a quiet fifteen year old. He slowly walked up to me and put his hand on my shaking one that was holding the phone.

We will talk to you when you get here, said the same gentle voice, and the line clicked off.

I was in a daze, I had no idea how I managed to page my husband Robert. He is a neurosurgeon, at the Fairfield Hospital. I heard from the operator that he was in Surgery. She would leave a message for him to call me as soon as he is done with the procedure. I told her that I was coming to the hospital and that he should meet me there, but please be sure that he was finished with the procedure before she gave him the message. This was a sheer conditioned reflex of twenty years of married life, and the experience of twenty three years of being a nurse in the Intensive care unit, at the same hospital.

I have no clear picture today, after six whole years have passed, one year blending into the other, with a constant ache that has become part of my heart and body. I do not know how I called the coach, grabbed Andrew, and drove the van. Those were the longest four miles that I have driven in all the years of my adult life!

Today for some reason, I am not able to stop reliving that day, as I have done a hundred times since it happened.

Chapter 1

When I parked in the 1Emergency Room parking lot, I forgot that I was a nurse, and that I worked in the same hospital. Everything looked gloomy and confusing, but I must have stayed quite calm because I made it past the triage area and heard myself asking for Kevin.

Since the children had grown enough to be on their own, I started working the midnight shifts again, so I was not familiar with the evening shift employees of the hospital. I rarely had a chance to leave the Intensive Care unit anyway, except for an occasional ride to the Emergency Room to help transfer a critically ill patient.