Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 November 2005 07:32:08
I know I was thinking of getting my blog a bit more up to date, but getting up an hour early in order to do it is a bit extreme. I woke in a panic, knowing full well what I'd done - when my alarm had gone off I'd turned it off instead of pressing SNOOZE and gone straight back to sleep. And here it was, half past already, and all the household still asleep on the morning I was due back at school at long last. Action stations - up and fed and washed and dressed and marshalled in a line ready to file out to the car. Smudgelet had left his reading bag next door and dashed over to collect it, only to waken a sleepy Auntie M who pointed out that it was only 6.40 a.m. My alarm had not gone off unnoticed at all.... it had not gone off ....because it was not yet time for it to go off - I was an hour early. But there you go, had I not made that mistake the Smudgelets would not now be tidying their room and I would not be doing my bleary-eyed blogging.
Life here is ticking along in its new routine. It's been lovely having my sister to stay for ten days - I'm dreading her going on Sunday as life will suddenly seem very lonely here. My other sister J joined us for the weekend, which was riotous fun as it's a rare thing for the three of us to get together, unimpeded by husbands or fathers (the poor sons felt very surplus to requirements!) I think the best time was sitting together round a game of Cranium Cadoo - a children's game but much more fun for adults and highly highly recommended. It includes all sorts of rounds, things like pictionary and charades and "find it" challenges. You should have seen M racing round Dad's bungalow against the clock, frantically searching for "something that will stick on your forehead if you press it on"... and ending up with some Super Wernetts denture fixative pads.
Dad seemed to turn the corner yesterday and at last was looking far better. We'd been extremely worried about him. It had been an ordeal for him moving from the hospital to the nursing home - he was in such intense pain and so distressed that the ambulance nearly turned round and took him back. We were just relieved to get him out of the hospital where the care had scarcely merited the name. The nursing home was such a contrast. I cannot sing their praises enough. A place where people are treated with dignity and a smile, where nursing is attentive and nothing is allowed to be neglected however small. They even employ someone to "have time" and just sit and drink coffee with the patients and chat (hmm.. I could do that job!), just in case they feel the nurses are too busy - though they seldom are. A light airy bedroom with en-suite and its own patio door out into the garden - honestly, it was so lovely that when the matron showed me round before Dad arrived there I burst into tears. In fact, she must have thought we were a right lot because we spent most of the rest of the day in tears of happiness. I can imaging Dad's fortnight there ending with him not wanting to come home!
He has been really poorly and on Monday was considerably depressed too. He managed to walk to his door and back, with help, but struggled to do it and was beginning to feel he would never get better. A man who's never taken tablets very happily is having to come to terms with a life of pain killers and laxatives as a fact of life and it's taking some readjustment. But yesterday we were delighted when, to our surprise, the nurse arrived and said, quite matter of fact, that she'd laid a place for his dinner in the dining room with two of the other residents and she was going to walk him there. He had his doubts - wasn't sure he could make it - but she was undaunted and soon had him on his feet and zimmering along to the table. He thoroughly enjoyed it and stayed sitting in the lounge for most of the afternoon, in stark contrast to the poor old man we'd visited the previous day. Talk about roller coaster emotions.
Me? I'm much better thank you very much... and if I never have acute sinusitis again it'll be too soon. Smudgelet's ears are better too, so far so good. Oh, and Tiddles got a commendation for his homework :D