My mother became hospitalized in February 2009.  I contacted Standen's side proposing that we settle.

I would've been willing to take almost anything at that point. But Standen refused.

Standen's refusal to make a quick settlement meant I could not leave town until I made a special emergency appointment with the judge in order to ask Standen to pause the trial so I could be with my dying Mother. 

I left London immediately after the Judge told me he would ask the other side to pause "as a favour" to him. Technically they could've denied my request but realistically the judge would've looked unfavourably upon them at trial. Trials are all about brownie points with the highest authority in the human legal court system and the one called "The Judge". 

So I arrived in Poway, CA to the incendiary mix of emotions that surrounded my family in the US. Mom looked small, frail and with just the faintest hint of spark left in her deep brown eyes. She lay unblinking most of the time, too sick to even feign enthusiasm. Though we all tried to deny it as long as possible, her heart was about to give up. 

The anxious face of my poor mother will always haunt me as she headed into the operating theatre for an unsuccessful triple bypass. In the end, she went to her grave worried about my lawsuit and the financial future of her youngest daughter. Those from Asian American backgrounds with "Tiger Moms" may be able to relate to how difficult that was for me.

Mom passed away on July 9, 2009.

Upon my return to London, I suffered my 2nd anaphylactic shock in Benitos Hat restaurant in Fitzrovia. The stress of both the trial and my Mothers death was too much for me to bear. For I knew that my mother died with a broken heart and went to her grave knowing my future was in the balance.

So if things had been personal before, they were really was personal now.