Friday

Got to speak with another two doctors as they arrived on the ward to drain Mum’s left lung. I was invited to watch the process. But this is a teaching hospital and there was a large group of students so I didn’t press my way to the front.

A chest x-ray had shown a large area with some opacity in Mum’s lung. They weren’t going to leave the drain in place but would remove as much as they could and provide a sample for the labs.

 After more than half an hour they had withdrawn more than 600ml of the grimmest looking liquid. The doctor didn’t think it looked that unusual though. Unfortunately for Mum, it hadn’t been that long since she’d had some painkillers and they couldn’t give her any more. She was pretty sore when they’d finished.

Some time later, I got to speak to the doctor actually assigned to Mum. I wasn’t sure I heard everything she said because she was absolutely gorgeous. But what I do remember Dr M saying was that they did think they now knew what the bug was. Streptococcus Pneumoniae. She said that Mum was back on the antibiotic they first tried when Mum was still in A&E. The reason it didn’t work then was probably because the infection mass was so dense. But the infection markers were coming down now and the fevers had stopped. Mum definitely did look better than she had on my last visit. This treatment would continue until Monday and they’d reassess Mum then.

But an hour or so later, all sorts of alarms went off on the instruments monitoring Mum. Pulse racing, oxygen saturation plummeting. I left when they’d got her stable again. She’d been through the wringer today and looked absolutely knackered. I’d been there six hours and I probably did too. 

Author’s Note

My Mum is in a nursing home in a small village in the Thames Valley. The photo is not of the home. I used an AI image generator to give the reader some idea of the home she’s in.

All, some or maybe even none (you’ll never know!) of the names have been changed to protect privacy and hide real identities. If you think you recognise someone then let me know and I’ll edit the post or remove it entirely