TO GO OR NOT TO GO

April 26th - 29th 2013

This is a tricky little problem... or perhaps it's a massive problem... I really can't make my mind up.

You see, there is a chance that my mother's life is hanging by a thread and that a bad ten minutes could basically mean the difference between recovery and the other, more final, option.

People who apparently know about such things also keep telling me that she's "stable" and "settled" and that she could remain in this comfortable but not really responsive state for quite some considerable time yet.

So, this is where the problem comes in.

We have a weekend away booked for the beloved's birthday and whether or not to go away and be absent for three perhaps crucial days in the ongoing drama that is my mother's illness is becoming something of a dilemma.

Our instinct is to cancel, and just bite the bullet and simply not go. But if we do that and the status quo is maintained, then we may regret not taking this rare and precious opportunity to have a "little break" later on if things get really tough...

On the other hand if you are far away and something really bad happens, can you learn to live with it afterwards...? Or will you forever regret making a bad choice at precisely the worst moment...?

You might think that its selfish and cruel and heartless to be even considering going away under the present circumstances and, to be honest, part of me would have to agree with you, but then again there's also ourselves to consider. Already a third of a year has passed since Christmas and we've done very little else other than traipse backwards and forwards to various hospital wards and it has been utterly draining.

It's very probable that we simply need to escape from it all for a little while.

My sister is of course around at the moment to act as "back stop" which does make it easier to go, knowing that there's still someone around keeping an eye on things, and she remains pretty adamant that I ought to go, and I am rather persuaded by the sense of uselessness and the general lack of consciousness and awareness emanating from my mother whenever I have visited these past few days, that it probably would make little difference to her whether I was actually around or not, but there's still that nagging doubt that, if there's a choice to be made, I do have a strange tendency to make the "wrong" one, and there is the nagging worry that, whilst she might not be aware of my lack of appearance, I sure as hell will be...

The timing, of course, couldn't be worse, but the break was booked a couple of months ago, before all this happened, and birthdays are fairly immovable objects in the great calendar of our lives, and sometimes you do have to consider both needs of the other people in your life and the fact that, despite being locked in a bubble of turmoil, life does need to be allowed to go on.

In the end, you simply have to make a decision, put all the safeguards in place that you can, and be prepared to live with whatever consequences that there might turn out to be.

"Better" news from the hospital on Friday morning does, of course, complicate matters. Mum had endured a more "active" night of being more awake and wanting to do things for herself, and this was definitely seen as an "improvement" and a "good" thing, although with greater lucidity comes greater awareness of certain absences, so the decision becomes slightly trickier again, especially when the nurse I was speaking to signs off with a cheery "Talk to you again later..."

The afternoon telephone conference with my sister seems to imply, along with the fact that mum's flat is now much cleaner and that my sister might head home early next week, that the overall situation remains much the same as it was this morning, only with more sleeping and the general consensus is that we're "good to go..."

So, full of trepidation, and with fingers, toes and just about everything else tightly crossed, we do...

And whilst Friday night seems to pass uneventfully, overnight text messages that finally punch through to my virtually signal-free telephone imply that there has been a marked improvement in mum's condition and that she has even been quite chatty, after having suddenly (some might even say miraculously) come to on Friday evening.

Maybe it was me that was holding her back...?

According to various texts received over the weekend, and a snatched conversation held on a path across a field, mum has memories of last week's visitors, has admonished my sister for returning to her bedside at all, and has no realisation that she has lost four complete days. In other words, quite her old self, if it wasn't for her being virtually blind (Her apparent insistence that "I don't want a guide dog..." did make me laugh). This is of course, encouraging, because it turns out that she's quite a stubborn and resilient old bird, but... Well, we have been here before.

The news gets better and better via texts and occasional phone calls snatched throughout the Saturday and Sunday, and it does start to look as if something of a minor miracle has occurred, given that the staff are now more than willing to admit that they didn't expect mum to even survive last Tuesday, and, having managed to let off steam and relax a little myself simply by being away, I arrange to drop by the hospital on my way home on the Monday afternoon, now approaching the prospect with slightly more hope than of late.