Categories: uncategorized
Date: 12 December 2006 21:22:39
Another chest infection.
From Saturday onwards Dad's been becoming increasingly weak, confused, in pain, and utterly miserable. I think he'd been holding it off while in respite and coming home had provided the release he needed to be totally and utterly poorly. It's been a real ordeal, lifting and moving him as a deadweight - he may have lost a lot of weight but it's hard to tell when he's leaning hard on your shoulders to support himself or when you're trying to manoevre him in the bed. He's shown signs of paranoia again and also been hallucinating and, what's worse, he wouldn't believe he was unwell.
His chest is constantly filling with fluid. The doctor commented that pneumonia is often called "the old man's friend" but said that Dad was still too strong for them ethically to be able to refuse treatment and thus the come-back kid strikes again... two doses of antibiotic and he's incredibly much stronger today! The good news, however, is that they are going to bring one of their automatic beds from the hospice for him to have at home.
Funniest moments in a dark and stressful and exhausting four days? Well, there was the interesting moment when he clenched his teeth on the drinking glass I was supporting and refused to let go, thus forcing me to stand there for a good five minutes unable to remove it as his mouth filled with juice and overflowed into my hand.... while the carer stood there in silent hysterics watching. There was the time this morning when he got really bolshy when I tried to give him his medication and he insisted on holding the glass himself, whereupon his hand jerked and sent the water all over him. There was the time he wandered on his three-wheeler frame into the hall, uncertain of where he was going, and in his fear of falling he grasped really tight to the brakes, which meant we couldn't take him anywhere to sit down. And most sit-com-like of all, there was the moment when we'd manoevred him from the chair into the new wheelchair and pushed him through from the lounge into the hallway, only to discover the new wheelchair is about three inches wider than the old one and would not go through the bedroom door. The door wouldn't open any wider because there was a huge chest of drawers behind it, with books and a TV and DVD player on top. Yes, you've guessed it. We had to park Dad up in the hall and go into the bedroom and totally dismantle the chest of drawers, balancing one thing on top of another in a corner of the room - a mountain that collapsed completely at one point and had me doing a goalkeeper's dive across the bed to rescue the television. Finally we were able to move Dad through to the bedside, though at that point we were not quite sure how to progress any further and had to ring Wightcare to come and manhandle Dad into the bed for us.
I slept two nights on the floor. He was so poorly it was obvious he wouldn't ring the bell if he needed help in the night, and was so delirious that we were concerned what he might try to do. The hospice have lent us a baby monitor. Brilliant idea. Shame Dad discovered the unit plugged in alongside his bed and pointedly turned it off. Now we have to find a better hiding place. Several people have greeted me today with "You look exhausted". Hmmm... nice to know the week's respite was so effective! I could do with a hot stone massage!