Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 December 2005 18:06:20
It was an amazing weekend away - hard to believe that already a week has passed since we sat in that theatre and were transported to another world. The sights and sounds of Dickensian times and of Shakespearean and current Elizabethan Stratford are still really vividly emblazoned on my imagination, which prolongs the treat.
Just as well really.
We arrived home and were straight into bustle mode. Dad was going into Southampton General Hospital for a week's radiotherapy treatment. I rang them all day Monday, unable to get through to ask the admission questions that there seemed to be no literature for: what should he do with his medication, were there laundry facilities or did he need clothes for a week, what were the visiting arrangements, should he take his zimmer frame or his crutches etc etc etc. In the end I left a message on the answerphone and asked them to ring me back. Sure enough they did... to inform me that the paperwork they had said that he would be travelling back and forth daily and not being admitted at all! Several frantic phonecalls later, and eventually they agreed to find him a bed "somewhere". AAAAAAGGGGGGGH!
Dad heard only half of the conversation, of course, and went into mega-anxiety-mode - a combination of feeling overcome with weakness and with anger, which he subsequently takes out on anyone standing nearby... which naturally happened to be me. He refused to let me help him with his shower (because I had stressed on the phone that he needed assistance with dressing and mobility etc) and proceeded stubbornly to battle through the whole ordeal single handed (and single legged), including washing the shower down and forcing himself to walk to the bedroom and into bed. It was horrible sitting in the lounge and listening to his groans and cries of pain, but if he wanted to be an obstinate ****** then I wouldn't go to him until he asked me to. (Memories of a phone call when he was staying with my sister where she said "I'm glad you phoned now because you stopped me pushing Dad's head under the bath water and holding it there!")
Tuesday he went off to Southampton with my sister in a hospice car and I sighed a massive sigh of relief, combined of course with a horrible sensation of him being a long way away and me unable to go and visit him. Despite having organised people to pop in every day and see him, I still felt the tearing at the heartstrings of separation. But it was going to do me so much good, finally to have a week to myself.
Or so I thought... a phone call that evening from my sister: "I'm on my way back on the ferry, but I just thought I'd let you know, they're only keeping dad overnight, doing a massive single blast of radiotherapy tomorrow and then sending him home again!!!". I don't often swear. I felt really guilty resenting the news as I knew he'd do best at home, but oh, my missing week of respite, at such a busy time of year too. Still not sure when precisely I'm going to get my Christmas shopping and cleaning done. I just don't have a moment to spare and, when I do grab a bit of time, I'm too tired to do anything. Still, I'm adjusting to the status quo again now and have settled myself to identifying priorities and letting the rest wash over me as far as possible.
In other news: Tiddles has lost his entire PE kit yet again. This is the third £100 outlay in as many months (three, not one hundred) and he is grounded for the rest of his life, as well as his Christmas presents having gone back to the shop to be exchanged for football boots, trainers, tracksuit, T-shirt and shorts, shinpads, toothguards, socks, bootbag and a very large bag to carry them all in. Merry Christmas!