THE WAITING ROOM

April 24th, 2013

So, with all that was going on, I went back to work anyway, although my brain was so mashed with worry that it wasn't the most productive, or the least tetchy, day I've ever spent there.

Still, I muddled through somehow. I rang the hospital and found out that my sister had already phoned, but I was able to be told what the administrator had overheard the nursing sister tell my sister which was, effectively, that mum had had a "settled" night... which I'm guessing is a term that we might be hearing a lot of, given that my call the next day got pretty much the same response.

My sister spent the day going back and forth on visits (11.00am - 1.00pm, 6.00pm until I arrived) and apparently, in lieu of having nothing much else to do, read crime thrillers at her, which, at least, the other patients seemed to appreciate. She also asked me to sub her a few quid because the petrol for the two journeys to and from Cornwall had stretched her limited finances a tad.

Eventually I arrived feeling fairly shattered for evening visiting which, at first, basically involved both of us having a conversation over the bed as mum lay oblivious between us. However, after sleeping for much of the day, mum sort of half-surfaced and immediately tried to get out of bed which led to us being shooed away whilst the nursing staff went about the business of sorting her out, and my sister remarked that this was the most active she'd seen her all day.

We retired to to that familiar old waiting room and chatted about high and low finance, whether we feel there's a legal case to consider over this situation, and other matters like the state of mum's flat and more of the banalities of day-to-day life when a relative is in such a condition and the future remains uncertain.

One of the other concerns is about my imminent weekend away which has been planned for months and has very specific calendar requirements, but which I'm still torn about whether to cancel or not. On the one hand, you simply don't want to be away if the worst happens, but equally, if mum remains "stable" it really ought not to be a problem. It's just one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations where just a little bit of time-travel or premonition would be very useful.

My sister is adamant that I ought to go.

The beloved is equally adamant that I might regret doing so.

I'm kind of leaving the decision as late as I can so that we can judge the wisdom of the final choice with the most information available, and am willing to be guided by what the nursing staff tell me, even though I know that there are no guarantees and things can change in minutes...

The nursing staff, of course, all remain rather lovely and patient and understanding, despite everything that they are having to be dealing with  and neither of us would wish to criticise any of them when we are fretting about the clerical error that seems to have brought us to this particularly unfortunate outcome, but the fact that we are even in this predicament seems to be solely down to one stupid mistake in the writing and dispensing of a particular drug combination that ought to be, at the very least, flagged up by a computer system if there's an accidental clash.

Or are we just scrabbling about trying to make sense of a situation that feels like nonsense when you're right in the middle of it...?

So, on the whole, the evening visit was not very productive, although I was at least able to return the paperback I'd inadvertently walked off with the day before.

Well, it was "World Book Day" I suppose, but that's not really an excuse.

I'd shoved it into my pocket at one point and found that it was still there when I eventually got home. It had turned into quite a nifty little thriller over the course of the hundred or so pages I'd read over the course of the day, and I was quite intrigued as to how it might end, so I'd ordered a copy off the internet overnight before returning it to the table in the waiting room.

Who knows... I may very well have to pick it up again another day...