LONG, DARK NIGHT... (1)

And so the cycle turns again and there follows another long, dark night of the soul...

This one began at 4.00pm, on Wednesday the second of October, 2013, although it could have started last Friday, to be honest. You might even say that it had really begun in January, or in late 2010, or maybe it dates all the way back to 1932 or maybe earlier. It all depends upon your point of view, really, but the basic truth is that my mother had had herself readmitted to hospital last Friday morning against all of the sage advice she had been getting from relatives and professionals alike and, as it turns out, she was actually quite right to do so.

But there you have it. What, in the end, does anyone else really know? After all, there had been so many false journeys, so many claims that nothing was wrong, so many promises of tests that were ultimately never done, and so many utterances that she was fit to go home and capable of looking after herself, that this just seemed like another episode in an endless cycle, albeit one in which we had finally started to really discuss other care options which might need to be considered.

The weekend, I'm told, went poorly, but I remained "unavailable" due to a combination of unfortunate circumstances, and a general sense of exhaustion coming from so long an endurance of these events that I needed, perhaps, to start to think about my own well-being for once, and, when I did finally visit on Monday, all seemed relatively well, although as the ominous October storm clouds began to gather, dark mutterings came from other sources telling me that things were less than hunky-dory and this latest hospitalisation was actually quite necessary given the amount of internal bleeding that seemed to have finally been discovered having been masked for months by other unpleasantnesses, it seems, coupled with an aversion to actually doing those tests I mentioned.

So, when the four o'clock telephone call came, I sagged as usual before making the connection and being asked if I was intending to visit soon. I mentioned that I was at work but had indeed fully intended to attend evening visiting that day, and was then put on hold to be connected to a doctor, who, it seemed, wanted to talk to me in person but was prepared to do so over the phone.

This turned out to be another of those cheery little chats about "resuscitation" which are always so encouraging, even though there was little in the way of any implied urgency that I ought to be heading over there to see her because the situation was critical.

I rang my sister, who lives in Cornwall you may remember, and told her about this development, and she then decided to ring the hospital herself and was advised that it might be better if she came up country as soon as she could...

Once she told me that, of course, I packed up my work and headed over to the Ward myself and spent a good few hours being as supportive as I could during a very upsetting time when I really thought that she might slip away at any moment, and got far more intimate personal details than a son should ever need to know about his mother's bowel movements, and rallying the troops (well, the beloved and the church minister) before it became apparent that mum was indeed "stable" again and in no immediate danger, and me being there was becoming rather more of a nuisance than anything else.

Logistically, and for various reasons on the shifting sands of various planned venues in which to meet up, I still ended up having to wait up until 1.15 the following morning to hand my sister the keys to mum's flat, where she was planning to stay after she battled through storms and roadworks and diversions and tailbacks to finally arrive in time to not actually go to the hospital that night after all... before snatching far too few hours' sleep in anticipation of what promised to be a difficult Thursday ahead...