Today we more or less pleased ourselves, with the exception of visiting Mum this afternoon, of course.
We took our time getting up this morning and had a very leisurely breakfast of pancakes and fruit before I did a few jobs and then set off to the hospital. I had planned to visit Mum anyway, but I took a phone call from the hospital asking me to help them in mobilising her. ‘Ha!’ I thought, ‘Good luck with that!’ I’m not holding out much hope but, if we are to get her back into the home, she has to be on her pins, I understand.
John was watching the cricket and chatting to David, his brother, so I thought I might safely leave him at home on his own. And, as it turned out, it was alright. He did a few jobs on the car and cleared a bit of rubbish from the back garden into the bin while I was out, and all jobs well and safely done.
When I arrived at the hospital, Mum wasn’t looking too clever. She had not long fallen asleep apparently, but she she looked a bit grey and rather dehydrated to me. Anyway, she woke up and I was able to persuade her to drink some water which woke her up a bit.
The Occupational Health (OH) nurse arrived with a colleague, and we discussed what we were going to do. I had bought Mum a new pair of slippers, so I suggested we use them as a stimulus to get her on the edge of the bed and into them. We did manage to lift her to the edge of the bed, amid lots of moaning and groaning from Mum, and popped the slippers on. However, there was a lot of ‘no, no, no, no, no!’ going on and attempts at throwing herself back onto the bed, so that she wouldn’t have to get out of it.
We managed to get her to stand up for a nano-second before she found lots of strength to sit back down again. We tried again, same result. And again – nah…. not having it, staying put.
I explained that she wasn’t really eating or drinking anything so might not have as much strength or balance as we might hope for. That clinched it. The OH nurse promptly decided that she’d not try any more and she dashed off to discuss the case with the medics, telling them that until they’d managed to get Mum to have some nutritional intake, they couldn’t do any more just yet.
Before the OH nurse left, she wanted to know if I’d be around next week to help again. We are planning a few days away with our mates at the end of the week, so we plumped on having another go on Tuesday. ‘Ha!’ I thought once again, ‘Better luck next time?’ Hmmmm…… unlikely.
Mum did drink a fair bit though while I was there, but only because I took the cup to her lips every ten minutes or so. I mean, the nurses can’t do that, so in between times, she’s getting more and more dehydrated.
She was also moaning a fair bit. It seems that she has a bit of a bed sore on her back, so I asked if they’d administered any paracetamol. No, they hadn’t. She was refusing her meds. “Although,” observed the nurse I was chatting to, “I suppose I could give her IV paracetamol, couldn’t I?” Well, yes, funny that you should have only just noticed that……
I was there a couple of hours, and felt reluctant to leave really. Not sure how she is going to get on. She has definitely decided that bed is where she wants to be. Which probably means that we’ll have to look for a nursing home for her now…… eeeh, it never ends, does it?
Take care everyone. God bless.