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.
Several days after being admitted to hospital Patrick remained very physically frail and utterly confused about where he was, and why…
But even as doctors puzzled over the exact cause of the infection which had laid him so low, life was not without its comic moments.
A diminutive Yorkshireman sitting on the bed next to Patrick’s – dressed in outdoor clothes and evidently awaiting collection – eagerly engaged number 1 son and me in cheery conversation one afternoon when we visited.
“You see that bag there,” he said, pointing to Patrick’s holdall.
“That’s mine…”
Number 1 son demurred gently but the tiny fellow would not be deflected.
He was unfailingly polite, anxious not to cause offence even, but still utterly determined to bag “his” bag…
“I tell you what,” he said generously, “how about you bring it over here?
“You can keep the bag if you want but I’ll just go through it and take out all the stuff that is mine…”
I pointed to the bulging black plastic bag at his side and said ”but all your things are in there…”
The soul of kind and reasonable patience, he smiled beatifically but was unswayed…
“I know what we can do,” he said finally, in the spirit of friendly compromise.
“I’ll take the bag home and if I find anything in it that isn’t mine, I promise I’ll bring it back…”
It was a kind offer, but one we refused…
However I had been considerably less impressed with the willingness to compromise of the Occupational Therapy team when they rang me at 9am the morning after Patrick’s admission.
“I’m ringing about your husband’s discharge plan,” a very young-sounding therapist started, in a voice which did not encourage dissent from the approved script.
But battle-hardened by months of dealing with hospital red tape I interrupted him before he could get fully into his stride.
“My husband was only admitted last night,“ I told him, “and was only taken on to the ward a couple of hours ago, so I think any talk of discharge is a little premature don’t you?
We don’t even know what’s wrong with him yet…”
But like the little Yorkshireman, he would not be distracted from the job in hand.
“We need a plan,” he said again, ignoring my assertion that until Patrick had received a diagnosis, and we had some idea of the sort of recovery he was likely to make, we really can’t begin to put together any sensible scheme for his future care.
So I repeated, very slowly, that my husband had been admitted less than 12 hours previously with a deep-seated infection which had not responded to antibiotics at home, that he was sleeping virtually 24 hours a day, had not eaten or poo-ed in five days and in the rare moments he was awake, was yelling and incoherent…
“But we…” came down the phone again and I felt the iron enter my soul: and as a growing and unworthy suspicion crossed my mind I cut him off right there.
“Tell me George,” I asked, “have you actually seen my husband?”
There was a long pause, and then he admitted that he had not.
BUT WE STILL NEED A PLAN, he repeated maddeningly.
“Well as it happens George I do have a plan,” I conceded graciously.
“After one of the most exhausting weeks of my life I plan to get some sleep, and drink rather more gin than is probably good for me….
And we will talk about your plan next week…”
…which I don’t think was exactly the plan he had in mind…