Thursday dawns without me being made aware of any overnight developments which is, basically, as positive a start as we can expect for a day at the moment as I stagger wearily about the house preparing myself for yet another chapter in this unfolding saga.
Of course, I do spend a lot of each day literally feeling sick with worry at what might unfold as events unfold, because, as it has been for some time now, there is a real sense that the bomb could drop at any second, and the telephone ringing is now, more than ever before, regarded with dread.
And yet... despite all of our fears, the morning phone call brings with it the news that mum has had a settled night, has eaten her breakfast, and (at the time of the call) was about to have a wash, all of which sounds far cheerier than anything that I saw last night.
Things really do feel like being on an emotional bungee cord at the moment, or perhaps a roller-coaster, and sometimes I just don't know quite what to think any more. Every time I allow myself to get my hopes up, they are then dashed, but whenever I plunge into the depths of despair, her resilience then surprises me...
For various reasons, I ended up being "off the grid" for a few hours, so, when my sister managed to track me down, for once with good news, I was in the car and the call was taken by the Beloved, who then reported that mum had been up and about with the physiotherapist, had eaten, had spent some time sitting in her chair, used the nebuliser and was taking her meds, all of which would have seemed impossible only a few hours earlier, and certainly not last weekend.
So, when I arrived on the ward at the start of evening visiting, it was rather a disappointment (for me) that she was fast asleep when there was so very much to talk about. The nurse who my sister and I chatted to in the car park at the weekend was available and told us that, from point of view, mum was certainly being very "vocal" in her demands again, but that she still looked very pale in her opinion, although, given her post-holiday tan, something like that might seem to be quite a relative point of view. She suggested that I speak to today's Staff Nurse who became available for a chat at the reception desk at about the very same moment as mum woke up and began another bout of confused shouting.
This Staff Nurse admitted that this was the first day she'd met mum, but ran through the list of achievements that my sister had already outlined, adding that they planned to remove the catheter that evening, before mentioning that they planned to discharge mum some time next week which, I think, she thought might be taken as good news, although she seemed blissfully unaware of mum's history of bouncing back and forth between home and hospital this year, and almost seemed to have no real understanding that doctors had been telling us that she was gravely ill and virtually at death's door only five days earlier.
Sometimes I wonder whether the ward staff only have memories of about 48 hours because this had happened before, and it certainly seems as if mum is "assessed" during one ten-minute period of lucidity and that the assessors assume that she's like this all of the time. The other problem is that they have to be guided by the patient, even if that patient is away with the fairies more than half of the time, so that if she announces that she want to go home, that's the plan which is put in place, even though it becomes very clear very quickly that she fails to cope even with the maximum number of daily visits in place.
Exasperated by all of this, I returned to the bedside for another fifteen minutes of the half-awake/half-asleep confusion which has been my experience of the past two nights visits, before deciding that our presence was disturbing mum more than it was benefitting her, so we decided to head off a few minutes earlier than planned, running straight into another visitor from mum's church, who offered to take over the visit and sent us on our way, although we did warn her that things might not be quite as coherent as she might have expected them to be.
At home I rang my sister who was as flabbergasted as I was by the suggestion that mum might be sent home any time soon, but then the whole situation with my mother's care and treatment and how it's being handled by those in authority is bewildering to us and, to be perfectly honest, looks as if it's likely to remain so...
Of course, I do spend a lot of each day literally feeling sick with worry at what might unfold as events unfold, because, as it has been for some time now, there is a real sense that the bomb could drop at any second, and the telephone ringing is now, more than ever before, regarded with dread.
And yet... despite all of our fears, the morning phone call brings with it the news that mum has had a settled night, has eaten her breakfast, and (at the time of the call) was about to have a wash, all of which sounds far cheerier than anything that I saw last night.
Things really do feel like being on an emotional bungee cord at the moment, or perhaps a roller-coaster, and sometimes I just don't know quite what to think any more. Every time I allow myself to get my hopes up, they are then dashed, but whenever I plunge into the depths of despair, her resilience then surprises me...
For various reasons, I ended up being "off the grid" for a few hours, so, when my sister managed to track me down, for once with good news, I was in the car and the call was taken by the Beloved, who then reported that mum had been up and about with the physiotherapist, had eaten, had spent some time sitting in her chair, used the nebuliser and was taking her meds, all of which would have seemed impossible only a few hours earlier, and certainly not last weekend.
So, when I arrived on the ward at the start of evening visiting, it was rather a disappointment (for me) that she was fast asleep when there was so very much to talk about. The nurse who my sister and I chatted to in the car park at the weekend was available and told us that, from point of view, mum was certainly being very "vocal" in her demands again, but that she still looked very pale in her opinion, although, given her post-holiday tan, something like that might seem to be quite a relative point of view. She suggested that I speak to today's Staff Nurse who became available for a chat at the reception desk at about the very same moment as mum woke up and began another bout of confused shouting.
This Staff Nurse admitted that this was the first day she'd met mum, but ran through the list of achievements that my sister had already outlined, adding that they planned to remove the catheter that evening, before mentioning that they planned to discharge mum some time next week which, I think, she thought might be taken as good news, although she seemed blissfully unaware of mum's history of bouncing back and forth between home and hospital this year, and almost seemed to have no real understanding that doctors had been telling us that she was gravely ill and virtually at death's door only five days earlier.
Sometimes I wonder whether the ward staff only have memories of about 48 hours because this had happened before, and it certainly seems as if mum is "assessed" during one ten-minute period of lucidity and that the assessors assume that she's like this all of the time. The other problem is that they have to be guided by the patient, even if that patient is away with the fairies more than half of the time, so that if she announces that she want to go home, that's the plan which is put in place, even though it becomes very clear very quickly that she fails to cope even with the maximum number of daily visits in place.
Exasperated by all of this, I returned to the bedside for another fifteen minutes of the half-awake/half-asleep confusion which has been my experience of the past two nights visits, before deciding that our presence was disturbing mum more than it was benefitting her, so we decided to head off a few minutes earlier than planned, running straight into another visitor from mum's church, who offered to take over the visit and sent us on our way, although we did warn her that things might not be quite as coherent as she might have expected them to be.
At home I rang my sister who was as flabbergasted as I was by the suggestion that mum might be sent home any time soon, but then the whole situation with my mother's care and treatment and how it's being handled by those in authority is bewildering to us and, to be perfectly honest, looks as if it's likely to remain so...
For obvious reasons, this ongoing series of postings was running a few days behind "real world" events, and, sadly, I should mention that mum died on the following Monday evening, but, such is the nature of "auto-scheduling" in BlogWorld that the remaining chapters will continue to appear as per schedule.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to persist with reading them, then, I ought to warn you that the ending that we're all heading towards probably isn't going to be a happy one. Sorry.