More ‘fat’ days

We are definitely having a series of ‘fat’ days. Days in which there’s a lot going on and not a lot of wriggle room.

Today was just such another day. It started early with John in a kerfuffle with his catheter and a bit of a clear-up operation. Then John decided he’d do a ‘tour of inspection’ on his house. This was unexpected. We had just had a bit of an altercation about whether or not the oxygen bottles and machine were really pumping out oxygen or something else? “I’m not putting the canular on,” he said. Okey-dokey. A little while without won’t hurt. “And I’m going to get dressed.” Smashing. “I’ll just go and get your clothes,” I promised, and ran upstairs to collect them. A few minutes later, I heard the stair lift on the go. Crikey, he was coming up under his own steam.

All fine and dandy so far. John inspected all the bedrooms to check they were shipshape. He got dressed and went into the bathroom to clean his teeth, whereupon I started to realise that the effects of the oxygen had now worn off and exertion was getting a bit more difficult.

He sat with a plump onto the bed and there he stayed…… unable to get himself back up to standing and walking to the stair lift. The walker was too high for him on which to get any purchase. The bed was too low. “Can you lift me?” John wondered. Ha! I did my best.

“Hang on,” I said, “Stay there, I think I’ve got something that might do for you lean on.” One of Mum’s little bedroom chairs was sitting invitingly on the landing. I brought it back and sure, enough, it was just right.

Ah… but just a minute! It didn’t get John near enough for him to transfer to his four-wheeled walker. Right…. I ran up into the loft to fish out the other chair (they had come as a pair) and that did the trick. So by a bit of a hotch-potch, we got John back to the stairlift, down the stairs, into his wheelchair and then the armchair. Success!

And John was persuaded to put his oxygen back on.

Then we waited in for the fire service to turn up. They are apparently going to do a ‘safe and well’ assessment of our home now that we have oxygen on hand 24/7.

Suffice to say, we waited in vain and then I took a phone call to say, ‘Sorry, but we’re cancelling today’s visit. How about next Saturday?’ Fine, I said, but thought it a bit mad that two weeks would elapse before doing the check. Hey-ho. No naked flames, please…..

We pretty much galloped through the rest of the day with visitors. I was grateful that Paul came to keep John company while I went for a massage. That was lovely and relaxing, which I sorely needed.

Moira, one of our Lay Readers, came just after lunch and we had a home communion which was good – although a bit rushed, because Paul had taken a phone call to say that the Community Respiratory Nurse, Karen, was coming out to visit.

Moira left and Karen arrived. While Karen was visiting, the bed people arrived to add an extension to John’s bed. Catherine and Lily then arrived to visit John just as the bed people left. Karen left, and David, Gloria and Darrel arrived. Another bed man arrived with the spare part they’d forgotten earlier. Oooh, it were like Piccadilly Circus!

David made himself useful and mended a couple of radiators – thank you very much. Gloria brought cake. Everyone brought hugs. But by five o’clock, John was ready for a nap, so we said our goodbyes and John slept.

John woke up about 8.00 and we watched a bit of TV before we welcomed Andrew home after his trip to Berlin. Of course, we wanted to hear all about it – which we did, intermingled with John’s left-field commentary, which was fuelled either by lack of oxygen or morphine, making us laugh. I turned his oxygen levels up a bit to see if that would help. It did a bit.

Andrew is on night watch.

Take care everyone. God bless.