Retired journalist and full-time carer for her husband, Geraldine Durrant, shares another story of twists and turns regarding her life as a carer…You can find the previous installments of Geraldine’s column here.
One Monday morning found me, not for the first time, at the end of my tether.
Patrick had been diagnosed with another urine infection, but despite being on antibiotics for five days he was still too weak to get out of bed, was refusing to eat and sleeping for up to 18 hours a day.
I woke him every couple of hours or so to get some fluids down him, grateful for the random impulse which had prompted me to buy some adult sippy cups a few weeks earlier thinking they “might come in handy one day…”
But weak as he was – and he could scarcely even manage a few tottering steps from his bed to the bathroom – Patrick was still utterly determined to get up: so in the brief interludes that he was awake each day I had to sit with him on the bed, knowing that if he had succeeded in standing up he would have immediately fallen over.
But nothing would pacify him, and if I left him for a moment – to pee or put a kettle on – he shouted for me constantly.
“Geraldine.
“Geraldine….!
“GERALDINE I NEED YOU…”
I had come to dread the sound of my own name, and I ached in every arthritic limb from the effort of constantly climbing the stairs, turning Patrick for a daily bed bath and helping him to sit up in bed while I tried to spoon something – anything – into him…
So over the weekend, in desperation, I had put out a request on the town message board asking if anyone could let me borrow a standing zimmer frame, adding that I would also need to have it delivered as I was unable to leave home…
…and within minutes a kind stranger had messaged me back.
She didn’t have a zimmer herself, but said she had located one on a freegle site a few miles away and would pick it up and deliver it within the hour.
This in itself was overwhelming, but when I opened the front door I saw a small boy bearing a bouquet of peonies and sweet william standing in front of a smiling young woman with the frame.
So I did what I always did whenever anyone was kind to me, and burst into tears…
But by Monday morning, when it was clear that Patrick was getting no better, I asked the GP for a home visit to assess him.
“I know you,” Patrick told her as she entered the bedroom.
“Have you got our two tickets to Tokyo?”
She had not, but she did authorise a trip to hospital and as an ambulance arrived – yet again – I felt only a sense of numb relief as I watch them drive Patrick away…
But I was so touched by ‘the kindness of strangers’ in the matter of the zimmer frame and flowers, that I mentioned it to friends on facebook, joking that I was also at home for the reception of seafood, chocolate, dawn-gathered strawberries and gin…
Two days later a dear friend arrived on the doorstep with a care-package of moules a la crème, picked crab, freesias and strawberries (not dawn-gathered but she had done her best, so I didn’t quibble…).
And two hours after that I received a parcel organised by friends in Australia containing grapefruit gin and chocolates – and if there is anything on earth more delicious than grapefruit gin I would very much like to know what it is.
So while the universe was listening to me for once, I sent out a silent wish to anyone out there who could arrange to have George Clooney scrubbed and sent to my room…
Although actually, I added, in an effort to tip things in my favour, if that was too much to ask, I was perfectly happy to scrub him myself…