Categories: uncategorized
Date: 12 January 2006 19:13:01
No, not quite what you are expecting, but for a while I thought it was.
Today was quite a day. I am still not sure what's hit me. Dad is continuing to be really quite unwell and I have been sleeping there for the last week and taking on rather a large amount of caring for him. It's been a tiring week, as you can imagine, and a stressful one too, but far less stressful than waiting for a phone call when he's ill in the night. The doctors we called out didn't seem too concerned about him, but when he went to the day centre at the hospice yesterday they saw a real deterioration and were quite concerned, both for him and for me. They apologised that they were short of beds, otherwise they'd have admitted him there and then.
This morning he and I had a row. Well, not a row really, though he thought it was. I just got a bit frustrated and, instead of biting my tongue, I expressed it very gently. His appetite is such that he is off a lot of foods, his tastes changing from one day to the next so that a much loved food one day is despised within 24 hours' time. I've mentioned it before - it's such a nightmare. This morning, when I took him his breakfast (leaving myself only fifteen minutes to get washed and dressed and eat my own breakfast this morning before work) he declared himself sick of toast and marmalade (yesterday's favourite) and also of fruit salad (another inspirational idea I had last week to get him eating more fruit, and an all-time favourite). He's also sick of cereal. He asked me to take the toast away and make him something different. I explained how difficult it is for me, never knowing what he might fancy, and he got really irritated because "you don't understand what it's like". I explained that I did understand but that it's just difficult to know what to make for him in the morning because I don't have time for messing about with cooked breakfast. At which he got really annoyed and informed me that he was perfectly capable of making his own breakfast and I should leave him to it if it was too much trouble. I walked out, saying "OK then". By this point he was being sick in the bucket - a frequent occurance these days - so I asked him if he was capable of being sick on his own and he waved me away.
Then comes the phone call at school. It's the hospice. He's rung them because he feels really unwell and he doesn't want to ring me because we've had a row. (They understood!) They've rung the district nurse and asked her to call in. Then the district nurse phones me at school urgently. She's gone to Dad's and can get no reply, either by phone or ringing the doorbell, both doors being locked. Peeping through the window she can see nothing either. She is worried in case he is lying unconscious on the floor, unable to ring his emergency button. Like a flash I fly out of the school, leaving a trail of "Got to go, please cover my lessons" behind me. I zoom home to meet the nurse and then, heart in mouth, unlock Dad's door and go in, calling to him as I go. No reply.
Toilet - empty. Bedroom - empty. Lounge - deserted. Kitchen like the Marie Celeste, with remnants of a half eaten breakfast (toast, I notice, and fruit salad!) on the table. Nobody in the bathroom, nobody in the spare room, no crutches on the hall stand. No sign of him at all.
Where do you start looking for an ill, slightly confused elderly father who's gone missing? He couldn't have walked very far as.. let's face it... he can't walk. He wouldn't have called a taxi - never in a million years would he have called a taxi. So where is he? Frantic phone calls to hospice, doctors, hospital.. all in vain. The neighbours know only that they saw a red car near Dad's house mid-morning, but the only person I know with a red car is M and she hasn't heard from him. I knew the meaning of the word "perplexed" - what could I do? He seemed to have run away, but where would he go?
Phone rings - the receptionist at the hospice. I seize the receiver and ask her if she's ringing because she's got Dad there. "No, of course not. He's at the chiropodists, isn't he?"
Would you believe it? The hospice car had arrived to pick him up for an appointment made three months ago and, in the trauma of his illness, totally forgotten about by all concerned. So there we were, contemplating ringing air-sea-rescue and getting the helicopters out, and all the while he was having his toenails cut!
The good news, however, is that a bed became free at the hospice today. The transport driver's phone rang as he was bringing dad home and dad said "If they need you at the hospice, I don't mind if you want to call in there on the way home" and the driver replied "Actually, it's you they want. You're going in!" And sure enough, he was taken there in time for a lovely meal and admitted.
I am so relieved. He looks so small and fragile in the hospice bed, but I know he's in the best place and it's giving me a very much needed break. I hope they can sort him out soon. He's in until Monday at the first instance, and maybe longer if he doesn't recover quickly. And tonight I shall sleep. Peacefully. All night.
And to add to my relief, they have offered at the hospice day centre to have him two days a week so I get a bit more respite. Praise be to God - it's just what we both need. I just need him to agree to it! He'll get a good meal and company and mental stimulation and doctors and nurses who actually know him and can spot his good and bad days, and I'll get another couple of hours of freedom.
Hmm.. bang goes my reason for a) ignoring housework and b) not exercising !