DEC 06 2010
The phone rang in the middle of a Monday afternoon. It was mum telling me they’ve told her she can go home and asking whether the hospital have rung me to tell me so yet. I told her no. Ten minutes later she rang me again to ask the same thing. At this point I was starting to question the wisdom of them sending her home, but I imagine they know what they’re doing.
Mum had also told me the day before – Sunday - that there was a prescription to collect. I was required to collect a high toilet seat and a bath seat from a local mobility equipment supply shop, and I had picked up the necessary paperwork during that night’s visit, fully intending to go and get it that afternoon.
I looked outside at the gathering dusk and decided that I’d better head off immediately as I’d rather be trying to get mum into the car in daylight when there’s ice on the ground, than leaving her standing on a cold and slippery kerbside whilst I tried to manouvre the car to a nearby space, assuming of course that there were any to be had at that time of the day.
After a brief stop off at a supermarket to buy her some essentials, I arrived at the hospital and the staff told me that they’d been trying to ring me – after I’d already set off - to tell me that there would be some delay, as mum’s medications needed to be dispensed from the pharmacy and that might take a few hours. This has been a bone of contention with me for some years now. What is the point of saying someone is released to go home and then making them wait several hours for their drugs to turn up? Is it beyond the wit of modern computer systems to look at release lists and tally them with dispensing lists and send someone down a few corridors to get the wretched things? I know that there are procedures to be followed and that hospitals are very busy, and I’m sure that there are many valid reasons why it can’t be done, but surely, surely, someone could sit down and give it some thought and come up with a slightly better system that doesn’t mean that everyone else has to waste a colossal amount of their time and patience on waiting around for hours on end…?
There was a brief discussion amongst the staff and it was agreed that it would be wisest to take mum home immediately, rather than hanging on until around 7 o’clock when the pharmacy cart “usually” showed up. A decision was taken that the drugs would be taxied over to her flat later on that evening. Very much later as it turns out. So, with that decision sorted, and with a certain amount of fuss and bother, we gathered mum’s bits and pieces together and headed off out to the car park. After walking her across the icy surfaces, I got her into the car and we swung by the mobility shop just before it shut to collect her prescription items and I also had to buy a non-slip bath mat. This was all part of a minor plan to save on the need to do that visit the next day and to ensure she has all she needs at home as soon as she gets there. Sadly after I get mum home, I discover that one of the legs is missing from the bath seat packaging so she still can’t have a bath anyway and I will have to make that extra journey the next day.
Men plan…
The arrival home was not much fun. Mum still seemed confused and, as I tried to set up the bathroom equipment, seemed convinced that there were three of me to do all the other things she thought needed to be done the very second she thought of them. I know that the ordeal was confusing for her, but I’m tired and get rather exasperated at this. During all that bedlam is when I discover the missing foot, which I also start to get frustrated by, and then there was a slightly horrible and ultimately poignant moment when I discovered a rotten sausage lying on the kitchen floor. This was, of course, a remnant of that forgotten meal that had triggered my concerns back on that first Sunday morning and which fallen unnoticed to the ground after she’d served it up the evening before, and is a symbolic reminder to me of how ill she’s been.
I cooked a swift meal of scrambled eggs on toast for her as it’s all that seems to appeal to her that evening, and my technique for making perfect scrambled eggs was frowned upon as I don’t use butter, but the olive oil I’d bought with me from my supermarket splurge. I struggled with the electric hob, too, being such an analogue “gas ring” kind of cook. One slice got eaten, with most of the eggs being scraped on to the uneaten slice. As a sign of how well mum was going to eat whilst at home, this really wasn’t good.
I stayed as late as I could, but the “drug taxi” failed to appear even after I rang the ward to ask where it was, because, to have any chance of getting home in the weather, eventually I had to leave. I was, quite frankly, knackered. I staggered home in my now constant “brain-mashed” state and made a few calls and then got a call from mum around 9.30 saying that the taxi had just been and she’d been trying to sort out her pills and she was off to bed.
DEC 07 2010
At around 4.30AM I woke up thirsty and went down the stairs to get a glass of water. For some reason I managed to fall down them instead, landing in a heap at the bottom having bashed my back on a stair about half way down. It feels as if I’ve cracked a rib, but I have never found out for sure whether I actually did as the real pain didn’t really start for a week and the thing never bruised. Anyway, there was no time for me to worry about me, so I went back to bed.
On my way to mum’s that afternoon after work , I returned to the mobility supply shop and gratefully received the missing leg. The visit to mums that evening found me fitting that and then putting up the Christmas decorations and discovering that the fibre-optic Christmas tree that she is so fond of was no longer working as the bulb has gone. It’s a tatty old thing that has served her a decade of Christmases but is now definitely past its best (but then, aren’t we all?).
DEC 08 2010
Another visit to my mum after work. I’d promised to buy fish and chips on the way so that we’d both have a hot meal, but she ate so little of it that it really didn’t seem worth it. I worry that not eating will trigger a relapse, but she says that she’s suffering from her usual stomach “issues” and that it will be fine. She did, however, seem unwell, and had no toilet paper in the house to cope with this. Her much postponed online shopping order wasn’t due until the morning after and such things would be arriving with that, but I got terribly angry inside about the fact that she’s even considering just using Kitchen Roll overnight and stomped off through the ice to the nearest “Metro-style” supermarket to buy a pack, half wondering whether I would return to find her slumped in the chair.
My mum also suggested, despite me having already completed my Christmas shopping, that I might like to buy her a new Christmas tree, a thought which hadn’t occurred to me.
DEC 09 – 11 2010
We decided between us that I could have a couple of nights off and so, apart from the odd telephone call, I didn’t have a lot to do with my mum for a couple of days. She rang often to assure me that she was fine and that people were coming to see her and that she was, most assuredly, eating properly, despite having no appetite. She was even considering heading over to the church coffee morning on Saturday if she felt up to it.
I planned to visit mum on Saturday afternoon after the beloved and I had done a major “pre-Christmas” food shop, and during which we also grabbed a few bits and pieces of fresh fruit and veg and a few meal items for mum that we thought should be fairly simple for her to prepare. After blitzing the supermarkets, I parked the car in town and headed off to the nearby temporary Christmas shop and spent a slightly ridiculous amount on a like-for-like(ish) replacement tree for her and then drove over to her place for a couple of hours chat over a cup or two of tea. She had indeed attended the coffee morning, but found it "a bit much" dealing with all the people. She seemed happy enough with the tree at least, although I was more concerned that she was not drinking enough, and during my visit I insisted she drank two cups of tea, two glasses of water and a glass of orange juice, all of which helped to improve her speech for a little while.
We bid our farewells and I headed off to collect the beloved from her parents house and we went home. Later on, there was a brighter moment when mum rang to tell me she had made and eaten egg and chips for tea, which we all saw as a definite sign of improvement, and we really started to wonder whether the crisis had passed.
The beloved and I settled down to watch “Airport” on Channel Five. I know that it’s a bit of a cheesy old disaster movie, but I’m still very fond of it. The rather tragic figure of the mad bomber trying to get the insurance for his wife – his sense of failure and lack of self worth being the quintessential example the other side of the “American Dream” and something I may well write about some other day - was about to get confronted when…
The phone rang.
It was mum, speaking in a very slurred voice:
“I can’t move my legs!”
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