A daughter has revealed how her desperate attempt to fulfil the last wish of her terminally ill mum was inspired by watching a Home Alone film at Christmas. Emma Knowlson's mother Ruth Clarke has been living with progressively worsening chronic heart and lung problems for the last several years and 'could die at any time'.
As a result Emma wants to take her back to New York City - the destination of her last holiday some 19 years ago and the place where she felt happiest - one final time before it's too late. She added that the idea came about after the 1992 Macaulay Culkin movie Home Alone 2 - Lost in New York recently appeared on telly at the 62-year-old ex-carer's Monmouth home.
"Mum was diagnosed with something called called supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) in 2018," said Emma, a 35-year-old housing officer. "It's a heart condition and comes on completely randomly at any given time.
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"It causes her heart to beat at an extraordinary rate - while most adults have a resting heart rate of between 60 and 100 beats per minute my mum's has gone as high as 210bpm. It's caused her to suffer a couple of mini-heart attacks and she's even had to go into hospital to have her heart stopped and restarted in order to try regulating it.
"She's also had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) since 2014, of which she's now in the end stages. That means her lungs are so bad that she constantly struggles to breathe.
"Even walking from one room to the next is impossible without the use of an inhaler, and the next step is to talk to the doctors about putting her on oxygen permanently. The worst part is that no one can give us an exact time frame of how long she has left.
"All we know is that it's killing her and that she could go at anytime. I just try to keep her as comfortable as possible." But Emma added that she's been left stressed and anxious as a result.
"If I try ringing Mum and she doesn't answer I then have to contact the police to go round there and do a welfare check - living in the Forest of Dean I'm not always able to make the journey myself." Nevertheless, she explained how the recent mention of New York saw mum Ruth brighten for the first time in years.
"It was Christmas Eve and, bizarrely, Home Alone 2 came on the TV. You know, the one which is set in Manhattan.
"Well, her face just lit up talking about how she'd gone there back in 2004 and all the famous landmarks she'd visited. She absolutely adored the place and it was the last proper holiday she managed to go on - she even kept all her admission tickets to places like Empire State building.
"I remember her saying, 'Oh, I 'd love to go back there before I go', and I'd love to make that happen for her somehow." As a result Emma said she's set up a Gofundme page to raise the three thousand pounds needed for a round trip for both of them.
However, Emma knows it's not going to be an easy journey. "Mum will have to be on oxygen during the flight and, when we get there, I'll have to push her everywhere in a wheelchair.
"It's going to be tough, but I've no choice - I just want to do this one last thing for her before it's too late." To find out more about Emma's Gofundme page click here.
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