Blip

About this episode

my brother keith was run over by a truck when i was 5 months old, he was only 7. keith is an amazing guy - he is 57 now - he has a very sweet, gentle, compassionate and docile nature.keith finished high school - but was continously plagued by epileptic seizures. they said he had a scar on the brain from the accident. he even got to travel the world - however the all the falls and the medication have had their toll on keith.. keiths accident had a profound effect on all our family. imum lived in guilt, dad emotionally shut down, keith felt responsible and just had more seizures, john ended up with several addictions and has spent his life runnint, trish works with people with disabilities and is a pretty closed book or risk the volatility and for me well i lived with a brother who was ill but had no real understanding of the effects until i lost my first baby and then the grief of my childhood pulled out the foundations of my existence. since then i have enjoyed an even deeper understanding of the people plus myself on this planet.. and making this video about ketih last year was a lot of fun and insighti am the youngest of the four and i think i am the one who feels the closest and most responsible for keith - it is really hard to try and help him have some quality of life. mum devoted her life to keith. i drew a picture of her as she was in a morphine induced coma. the plan was the coma would stop her panicking as her lungs filled with fluid from the grief of cancer and the unshed tears.it was far easier for mum to display anger than sadress - the most amazing part about mum dying was when i told keith to kiss her goodbye she was literally a few hours from death, and i had to take him hope - his kiss actually woke her briefly.... the pull of a mothers love for her son was strong enough to wake her from a coma she had been in for 3 days.. after that the staff upped the dosage of morphine (she had asked to be knocked out and not to be in any distress we were told) and she died soon after i took keith home, and got settled myself.dad died 4 years after mum - i was there when he died and felt pretty scared that he was going and how on earth were we going to look after keith anyway since then have taken on the responsibility of keith.i feel sad that i cant look after him better, but he is too much for me on my own - he needs 24 hour care, dad said if people are in institutions for too long they become institutionalise. he cant even feed himself anymore ... he lives in a nursing home for aboriginal people. i am lucky to have him in such a emotive setting - it is not ideal - but keith has epilepsy from the accident and i never know when he is going to fall. My childhood was spent with a great deal of anxiety with each loud bang wondering if keith had gone through a window or where he had fallen.

• Release Date

  Dec 20, 2006

• Runtime

  05:26