MAYDAY

May 1st, 2013

I managed to staggered exhaustedly into work after a restless night and attempted once again to summon the energy to make that morning call to the hospital to see how the night had been for my mother. Hers had been "great" apparently, which at least made one of us.

I asked briefly whether mum's missing stuff had turned up, but the nurse I was talking to didn't know anything about it, but promised to pass on the message to another nurse at shift changeover. This was the point at which I meant to mention that my concern was not for the watch itself (after all, if it had gone, then it had gone...), and that I wasn't accusing anyone of filching it, but that mum's confusion over quite what time it was seemed to be causing her some concern, especially as the side room that she was now in didn't have a clock in it, and the extended daylight hours seemed to be making her feel even more befuddled about the issue.

A short while later, I rang my sister and we had a very long chat about this and other matters, before the needs of the working day came into play, but she promised to mention it herself later on when she rang up.

A "two-pronged" attack seemed required.

She was also planning on following up on her email communications with the Hospital Administrator which got stalled by her sudden dash back up north, and I explained that I planned to go to the flat that evening and rifle through the post to see if there were any bills and suchlike which needed addressing, which is precisely what I did after the working day was done.

That evening's visit was pretty encouraging. It was immediately apparent that both her watch and her necklace had indeed been found and were back in situ, and, whilst mum remains very vague about certain things, she was, at least, in a communicative mood, even if the mantra that "they say I'm doing very well" gets repeated a lot...

Perhaps she's still trying to persuade herself of the truth of this.

What time of day it is still seems to be a source of much confusion, as indeed does the day itself, but that's only to be expected, really. Other things, like what she's eaten, problems moving her leg, and the illness of certain old friends, she's still very certain about, but things like the fact that she had actually spent some time out of bed and in her chair seem more easily forgotten.

I only found this out because of the update I got from one of the nurses, who told me that they were all "very pleased" with mum's progress, and the fact that she was eating "proper" food again. The fact that this had been a curry seemed very brave of them to me, given the usual reaction of my mother's digestive system lately, but they said that it was them that had to deal with it and it didn't bother them, so that's fair enough, I suppose.

Later on, mum's declarations of thirst had me playing "hunt the nurse" as they were all taking advantage of it being "visiting time" to have a meeting, but I was able to track one down and pass on the message before we drifted off for the night, feeling a lot more comfortable with how things were progressing, even though there's still a long way to go yet...