Tuesday was expected to be a bit of a "crunch" day for my dear old mum, given that she knew that my sister and the members of her family who had travelled up country with her were heading home today, and how much this could tend to make mum anxious and depressed.
I would, of course, be at work all day unless there was some kind of crisis summoning me to the bedside once more, so family visiting would be reduced to a mere one hour or so during the evening which could mean that the ward staff had a very long day, given that mum seems to think that every two minute period lasts about half an hour these days.
And so the day unfolded in that slightly distracted manner in which it seems to nowadays. I dragged myself back to the office to get out of the way of some potential delivery traumas at home, phoned my sister as she was on the brink of departure, and received a call back from her once she had rung the hospital stating that all was well.
I still get twitchy every time the telephone rings though, because I'm still expecting the bomb to drop 24/7, and that's kind of an exhausting way to be going through your life, to be perfectly honest, and even a certain amount of "happy, happy" news (for me at any rate) from the big, wide world, failed to find me dancing on the tables in quite the way that it once might have done.
At the end of the day I staggered home, had a swift meal, and accepted a phone call from one of mum's church friends which meant that I was able to spread the word that she was once again "stable" whilst pointing out that daytime visiting was going to become something of a problem for me to keep up with personally. As an "Ex-GP" she was very nice to me about not having spread the word sooner, saying that it was their job to find out, not mine to tell them, which kind of helped.
But the visit itself did not go well.
Because the staff were off in various places, no doubt dealing with various crises, the place had the air of the Mary Celeste when I arrived, admittedly a few minutes early, but as mum was having one of her "needing the toilet, go and fetch a nurse" phases, and it took fifteen minutes before one actually became available, this was not the best of starts.
Mum was acting very oddly throughout most of the hour, to be honest, with her mind wandering and looking far, far iller than she had at any time during those long, long hours of holding her hand at the weekend when we thought that she was going to slip away, and this was after we had finally got to chat with the duty staff nurse who maintained that they were very pleased with mum's progress and had taken her off the drips and put her back onto oral medication, and that she was recovering well, and that the hacking cough that she was manifesting was just because of a small amount of fluid still left in one of her lungs.
But the strangeness persisted. She didn't seem to know where she was or have a clue what time of day it was despite me telling her time and time again, persisted in telling me that if my sister was here she would find out what was going on, wondering why we weren't just leaving, and, when I realised that she thought that I was there to take her home, I suddenly understood that it seemed as if she was giving me the edited highlights of the past few weeks in a kind of "Previously on..." way.
I got so concerned that I tracked down another nurse and made further enquiries about whether they had changed her medication, because she was so far away with the fairies that it was really bothering me, even though it probably seemed perfectly normal to them. Anyway, they promised to keep an eye on her and I drifted back to the bedside not exactly reassured as such, but feeling that I had at least tried...
Later on, when I thought about it, I realised that she was probably not actually properly awake, despite her eyes being open, and we were just interacting through a dream state, but it was pretty damned scary at the time, even though she became far more lucid during the last couple of minutes as we made to depart again, although I still felt concerned enough to interrupt my sister's homecoming evening wit a swift call to her from the Sainsbury's car park when we called in there on the way home...
And so the day unfolded in that slightly distracted manner in which it seems to nowadays. I dragged myself back to the office to get out of the way of some potential delivery traumas at home, phoned my sister as she was on the brink of departure, and received a call back from her once she had rung the hospital stating that all was well.
I still get twitchy every time the telephone rings though, because I'm still expecting the bomb to drop 24/7, and that's kind of an exhausting way to be going through your life, to be perfectly honest, and even a certain amount of "happy, happy" news (for me at any rate) from the big, wide world, failed to find me dancing on the tables in quite the way that it once might have done.
At the end of the day I staggered home, had a swift meal, and accepted a phone call from one of mum's church friends which meant that I was able to spread the word that she was once again "stable" whilst pointing out that daytime visiting was going to become something of a problem for me to keep up with personally. As an "Ex-GP" she was very nice to me about not having spread the word sooner, saying that it was their job to find out, not mine to tell them, which kind of helped.
But the visit itself did not go well.
Because the staff were off in various places, no doubt dealing with various crises, the place had the air of the Mary Celeste when I arrived, admittedly a few minutes early, but as mum was having one of her "needing the toilet, go and fetch a nurse" phases, and it took fifteen minutes before one actually became available, this was not the best of starts.
Mum was acting very oddly throughout most of the hour, to be honest, with her mind wandering and looking far, far iller than she had at any time during those long, long hours of holding her hand at the weekend when we thought that she was going to slip away, and this was after we had finally got to chat with the duty staff nurse who maintained that they were very pleased with mum's progress and had taken her off the drips and put her back onto oral medication, and that she was recovering well, and that the hacking cough that she was manifesting was just because of a small amount of fluid still left in one of her lungs.
But the strangeness persisted. She didn't seem to know where she was or have a clue what time of day it was despite me telling her time and time again, persisted in telling me that if my sister was here she would find out what was going on, wondering why we weren't just leaving, and, when I realised that she thought that I was there to take her home, I suddenly understood that it seemed as if she was giving me the edited highlights of the past few weeks in a kind of "Previously on..." way.
I got so concerned that I tracked down another nurse and made further enquiries about whether they had changed her medication, because she was so far away with the fairies that it was really bothering me, even though it probably seemed perfectly normal to them. Anyway, they promised to keep an eye on her and I drifted back to the bedside not exactly reassured as such, but feeling that I had at least tried...
Later on, when I thought about it, I realised that she was probably not actually properly awake, despite her eyes being open, and we were just interacting through a dream state, but it was pretty damned scary at the time, even though she became far more lucid during the last couple of minutes as we made to depart again, although I still felt concerned enough to interrupt my sister's homecoming evening wit a swift call to her from the Sainsbury's car park when we called in there on the way home...
Is there a difference between life and a dream? I often wonder.
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