Thursday, June 13th, 2013
As I lay awake at four in the morning with my brain unable to switch itself off and the anxiety making my stomach churn, I began to realise that my beloved is absolutely right and that, if I make myself ill with all of this running around, which has now been going on for more than five months, and don't do anything to improve the situation, I might be left unable to do anything very much at all in the time "afterwards..."
I might not be able to work, or go anywhere, and be left as just an exhausted, burned out husk and so, whilst putting myself first for a while might seem a tad selfish, it might be the only way I can find to ultimately be able to cope with the long haul.
God, I need a holiday...
Meanwhile, a tale has seeped down to us about a friend of a friend who is currently pursuing an official complaint against the very hospital that mum is in for neglect and incompetence, and, if you've been reading one or two of these entries very closely over the last few weeks, you won't be ay more surprised to hear about that than I was.
I arrive at work carrying a stack of mum's mail which I open whilst sipping at the first coffee of the day. Opening mum's mail reveals some previously unknown financial problems which have been lurking on the periphery for a while involving a catalogue company, and I end up spending far too much time dealing with and fretting about before sharing the problem with my sister who I know will go at them all guns blazing. Mum also now has a car registered to her address that she doesn't actually own and finding a way of telling the DVLA that their paperwork might be in error when you're not the registered keeper is another lengthy process to go through... and I'm really far too tired for any of this...
Mum makes a call to me around 8.45am with her last 16p of credit, and tells me that she is feeling better after having had a temperature yesterday, a day on which she didn't wake until 12.45 and had to ask her visitor to leave because she was too tired to talk. I start to ask about the catalogue company, but the call gets cut off as the 16p runs out.
Thursday evening rolls around "with the inevitability of an unloved season" and I reluctantly drag my weary body back to the hospital for a visit which is actually far more amicable than could be expected after my recent experiences. Maybe exhaustion is just mellowing both of us...? Either that or mum's finally had the fight knocked out of her, but, whatever it was, it was the most pleasant hour we've spent together in a while.
Although I forgot to return the washing, I remembered the hymn book, and I was able to sit down with her calmly and rattle through the paperwork with her and clarify everything that I needed to, and put some more credit on mum's phone because she hadn't felt that she could be bothered to, for which I got an actual "I don't know what I'd do without you..."
She also mentioned that an old friend ("Betty") had called in and visited during the afternoon and mum had spoken to one of the nurses who had been treating her earlier on who, apparently, "could tell that there was something not right with me..." at about the time of her seizures in April, although I'm not entirely convinced about what that was actually supposed to mean... Did she notice and do nothing, or was it her who pointed out the problems mum was having...? Until now, we've believed that it was another patient who pressed the alarm button during that long, dark night of peril.
Anyway, I went on my way in a much brighter mood, if still shattered, and promised to return on Saturday.
Friday, June 14th, 2013
Two telephone calls from my sister pierce the early part of my working day after I've written to the DVLA to tell them that my mother does not actually own a car. The first is to discuss the fallout of yesterdays financial shenanigans (which remain ongoing and bloody annoying - watch out if you ever sign up for the "Studio" catalogue is the only advice I can offer you) and the second is to let me know that the hospital have scheduled mum in for a bone marrow biopsy next Thursday, because they now think that she may have a blood infection...
Nothing to worry about, apparently... but, well, you just do, don't you...?
Saturday, June 15th, 2013
On Saturday afternoon I drag my weary carcass reluctantly to the hospital once again, remembering at least to take the clean washing with me, and discover that, once again, mum has been put in an isolation ward because of the perceived risk of infection from yet another stomach incident. It seems, according to the nurse I talk to, that the decision has been made to keep her on a side ward for as long as possible to stop her feeling as if she's being moves around "like a yo-yo..."
The hour I spend in mum's company passes pleasantly enough although she seems less bright than she has been recently and tells me that yesterday (Friday) was a "very bad day" as she had one of her "shivery do's" and spent a lot of the day either asleep or in a great deal of confusion about what time it was, and even what day it was, and she wondered why the hospital hadn't telephoned me.
Any evening visiting that I might have done would have been pointless because she was taken off to x-ray during that hour anyway, by a very "nasty" porter who just sounded as if he'd had a very bad day and wanted to go home...
During the hour I spent with her on Saturday, though, she seemed brighter, although I can't help but notice that she does appear to be deteriorating slightly, despite having had some "lovely" scrambled eggs for lunch. Her friend the anorexic and her dad pop in to see how she's doing, and mum tells me about a fall my sister has had which adds to the general air of slight worry and confusion in my head, at least.
It also seems that someone has finally taken the time to plough through mum's medical notes and found a reference to "Hodgkin's Lymphoma" from about eight years ago, which seems to be why they're suddenly taking her condition far more seriously after all of this time and planning the biopsy. The diagnosis back then was, of course, "inconclusive" because they decided that no treatment was necessary and it "went away on its own" which kind of makes me believe that it was never really there, not that my mother can make such a connection. Still, if it gives my mother a more "dramatic" past to talk about, or drop as the occasional guilt bombshell, who am I to spoil her fun...?
The other thing that seemed to be confusing my mother during the visit was that the telephone didn't work. She'd mentioned it to the staff the previous night and they'd told her that someone would come and fix it in the morning but nobody had.
It took, just by taking a moment's interest, the work of but a moment for me to spot the problem: Both of the handsets were missing. When I said this to the nurse, she wasn't really paying attention to me either, and said something about knowing we wanted headphones, until I pointed out the missing keypads to her which seemed to come as a bit of a shock. In all fairness, however, she did go and look for them and returned with them within two minutes, so communications were, in the end, quite simple to restore, but I couldn't help but wonder how symptomatic of them not really paying attention to the smaller details this might be...
Still, like I said, the hour was pleasant enough, and the staff seemed jolly enough as they came in to take blood pressure and temperature readings and so on. My mother and I got through a visit without having a bust up of any kind, although, as I thoughtfully returned to the car park, I couldn't help but think that I was getting a real sense of an ending coming, which, naturally made me feel a little sad.
Of course, as I think I may have been suggesting elsewhere, I had decided to take a break from blogging for a while, mostly down to the fatigue and exhaustion and the worry all this hospital visiting has been putting me through. However, as this particular situation remains, against all of my expectations, ongoing, and there still doesn't look like being and end to it any time soon, I'm going to have to make some decisions about whether to keep on writing these updates, although I think that I'll probably have to, even if it's only for myself and the family to keep all of us in the loop.
Stay tuned.
See you later.
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