Tuesday

Lesley was with her dad again today. His new glasses were ready for collection. He’d been getting on OK with the bifocals and seemed to be getting used to them. Plenty of other people in his social circle were wearing them and they told him that they liked them. But then one of the volunteer drivers that take him to his day centre mentioned his experience.

“Huh! Bifocals! Couldn’t get on with them so I went back and got them changed.”

And that was that. From then on he hated his bifocals.

So now he has reading glasses and a general pair. That’s back where we were before and he always had the wrong pair on.

He did enjoy being taken round his local market town in the wheelchair but was keen to get back home for his lunch.

When Lesley got back there was a call from Dad’s lung cancer team lead. Just a scheduled chat so check on his condition. Lesley reported that his breathlessness was more frequent, that he was sleeping most of the day now and that his carers had said he was losing weight rapidly. There were two options: They could drain the fluid from his chest again but the stress and discomfort that that would cause would probably outweigh any benefit. The other option was to try steroids to pep him up a bit.

Mum was still in a Sleepy phase when I got to her. It looked like this one would be going into a fourth day. It didn’t feel that long since the totally unresponsive part of her Sleepy/Active cycle was only one day.

Mum stirred a bit when I said I was leaving obviously but she’d been asleep all day,  asleep most of the time I was with her and was completely unresponsive when I left.

Her carers had made the bed with her arms out over the blanket and she was getting cold. Not that she realised of course.

“Come on Mum. Let’s get you covered up properly…”

She barely had the strength to lift her arms up.

She did try and talk a little today. She wanted a drink and she pleaded not to be left on her own.

Her mood was up and down when she was conscious. She thought that The Dog finding an enormous fox poo and rolling in it so effectively that she covered herself, her harness, her lead and then me in it was funny. Later on she had a coughing fit that wore her out and left her weeping.

I may have been mistaken but I think she said she’d had enough.

Bloody hell.

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