Isolation Day 67

If only I had a brain, I’d be winning! And dangerous probably, but honestly, the grey matter gets more addled every day.

I had a lovely morning, chatted to John first thing, to see how he was, and then, my friend Chris dropped the most gorgeous bunch of roses in, and we had a little chat on the path; and then I spent ages talking to my good friend, Anita, on ‘how do you solve a problem like my Mum?’ (please sing to the tune ‘How do you solve a problem like Maria?’…) before Mum actually drifted into view, still in her night attire at mid-day, just the two hours after I’d woken her up.

I think it was then that my grey matter went into meltdown. “Are you planning on having breakfast, or lunch?” Anita asked Mum over the WhatsApp video call. She wavered, “Perhaps breakfast?” she offered, tentatively. Then, when I’d said goodbye to Anita, she said, “What are you going to have?” Well, I was going to have my favourite breakfast/lunch/snack dish, of poached egg on toast. “Oh, that sounds nice, I’ll have that, the same as you.” I nodded and suggested she help me get it ready. All well and good so far.

Ah-ha!! I hear you regular readers thinking – ah-ha! didn’t she say she was never going to feed Mum toast again after the last debacle? Of course, I didn’t remember that thought process, did I, until she was well into the struggle of trying to cut the crusts off……oh, dear. The effort of eating the toast left Mum exhausted and……..was she going to have a turn? Fortunately, not, but it was touch and go for a minute or two. If only I had remembered my own advice!!!

Anyway, to John, who is still languishing in hospital. He tells me that the medics are being very attentive and carefully explaining what they are doing and why. They have been in touch with Heartlands and discussed his ‘interesting case’ with colleagues there, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that the wires don’t. He is still on oxygen and still a bit out of breath if he exerts himself – like in the shower where he must have had fun, because he said, “Showering in an oxygen mask, whilst connected to a variety of tubes, is like scuba diving through a pan of spaghetti!”. Great image, eh?

Technically, as I understand it, the medics are treating John for the Pseudomonas infection in his chest and for a low neutrophil count, and we think that they won’t let him out until they are satisfied that things are a bit more stable. A suggestion of Monday or Tuesday maybe.

But, on to this afternoon which brought great excitement. So much so, that I was jumping up and down like Tigger, and generally wind milling my arms about as fast as you like as I welcomed Michael, Danielle and William into the garden for an hour’s visit. I hadn’t felt excitement like it since Paul and Freddie visited on Tuesday!!

We had talked about the Sutton Sleaths coming over for a social distancing visit once travel was permitted, and so we’d plumped on today being the day. What we hadn’t planned for, of course, was that the ol’ man wasn’t going to be at home to greet them. Should we go ahead with the visit? Or should we wait? After having carefully thought about it for a nanosecond, I said “Let’s go ahead.” John joined in for a while on the phone and I sent a couple of videos to him of the family playing the garden, so he had something at least.

Oh my days! It was bliss. To be able to talk, face to face. To see Michael and Danielle’s beautiful, glowing faces as they smiled at me. To see William’s delight as he realised he was at Grandma and Grandpa’s. And to watch him running about the garden and playing in the sandpit and chattering away to me, to Mummy and Daddy, and to himself. Glorious. To be part of William’s ‘Why?’ phase, even for an hour or so, was just heaven.

Grandma Hazel, aka Mum, also joined the party, but from inside the house looking out. She thought she might like come out and sit on the bench with me, but having put one foot outside the patio door, she retreated pronto as the wind blew. She popped out, a few minutes later, at the kitchen door, making us all laugh at her ‘Jack-in-a-Box’ antics. And later on, she stood at the patio door again, and with absolute delight shining from her eyes and a cheeky grin, she waggled her hand furiously to wave to William in the sandpit. She enjoyed the visit too.

The hardest part, of course, was saying goodbye, and William telling Mummy that he didn’t want to leave. It also broke my heart to see the furrowing of his brow when he made to come to me for a cuddle and we had to tell him to keep his distance. He’s too little for this stuff, damn it!!

After our evening meal, I spent a lovely hour or so chatting to John on the hospital phone. He’d been debating whether to invest in three days of TV time as the internet signal there isn’t very good, and he’s struggling to pick up his usual entertainment on his phone. In the end, I thought a bit of reverse psychology might work on his ailments, and if his ailments knew that he’d coughed up real money for the telephone and TV, he’d be out of hospital in no time. We’ll wait and see on that one….

I wondered if John would be able to pick up the photos I’d sent him, but he tells me that if the wind is in the right direction, the internet will spark into life and he can sometimes get things on his phone. Well, that’s alright, then.

And COVID-19? How’s that doing today? As of yesterday at 5 p.m: still over three thousand people have tested positive for the virus; 172 deaths in hospitals and 351 in all settings. The NHS figures for deaths in hospitals was 27, but 61 finally confirmed for the day before (20 May 2020).

With people milling about on beaches and in parks due to the hot weather this week, do we expect the figures to rise again? What say you all?

God bless.