Monday

Same chaos, different day.

On Lesley’s task list for the day were booking an appointment with our GP, finalising the contracts with what we have to refer to as Dad’s ‘Hospital’ to transition him from respite to permanent residence and preparing for the meeting with Social Services tomorrow. Consequently, while she was with us on The Dog’s walk this morning in body, her nose was in her phone and her head was elsewhere.

Booking a GP appointment through their new app is pretty straightforward. You fill in your request and shortly afterwards you get a notification whether your appointment request has been approved. The message that Lesley’s need could be met by a telephone consultation came in while we were out. Good news! It could be as early as tomorrow.

But while Lesley was choosing which doctor she wanted to speak to and which time the call was to happen another call came in. By the time she got back to the GP app all the slots this week had gone.

Another call came in. It was Reggie filing his report following his visit. Reggie had a day off work from The Home and had volunteered to visit Lesley’s dad on his way home from the gym. He was pleased that Dad had recognised him and that he’d been happy to see him but aside from that he’d been shocked and saddened to see how far and how fast Dad was declining.

Another call went out. Head Office for The ‘Hospital’ had received all the documents they needed – the application form, a copy of the Power of Attorney and copies of bank statements proving Dad could pay for a full year of care – and all that was needed were some signatures.  Or rather some signatures and a four grand deposit that had never been mentioned before.

Head Office assured Lesley that the signatures could be handled locally so Lesley gave them a call. Was the manager available? Nope. How about the bursar? Nope. Was anybody with any authority deputising for either of them in their absence? Nope.

So Lesley’s dad would be stuck on the higher respite stay rate until somebody could be bothered to drag their sorry backside into work and put pen to paper. How convenient.

“Never mind,” I said with no attempt to hide any sarcasm, “at least your sister is happy because the place looks posh.”

Lesley read the contract that Head Office had sent.

“WHAT!!??”

“Go on then, what does it say?”

“I already knew that the price had gone up last month. But it’s going up again in April!!”

“But it’s posh!” I said while silently trying to work out the odds of Dad surviving long enough for that to be an issue and concluding that it might well not be.

Over the course of several calls with Social Services and Dad’s new palliative care team it emerged that while the last palliative care team had been eager to get Dad off their books, they weren’t quite so keen to release his notes so everybody else was flying blind. It also emerged that the senior nurse at what we have to refer to as Dad’s Hospital, the senior nurse that we were told we could trust, wasn’t going to apply for the end of life care funding that he was entitled to because he was, in her words, “Stable”.

“How can she say he’s stable!?” Lesley said, “She’s hardly seen him! She’s never there! She’s been off sick since he arrived.”

Lesley headed off to visit him for herself. She returned with an “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed” face on and looked defeated. We took The Dog out for her afternoon walk and Lesley drafted out loud an update for her sister with all the things that were being done wrong or not being done at all.

“He’s in a terrible state. I’m going to tell her I regret moving him there.”

“Eh? You’re actually going to say that to her? Blimey!”

Lesley’s visit hadn’t gone well.

“The first thing he said to me was a telling off. He waved his hand at all the new electronics and told me not to touch it.”

“Leave that alone. Nick knows how it all works.” he’d said.

“It’s alright. I know how it works too.” Lesley had replied.

“Do you!!? I thought it was complicated?” he’d said.

Charming. It wasn’t clear whether he thought it looked too complicated for a girl generally or whether it was just his eldest daughter who was too dim to work a digital photo frame and an Amazon Echo.

Lesley had arrived to find Dad halfway out of bed. The fancy high-tech laser detector which was supposed to alert staff to him moving unsupervised, the same fancy high-tech device that had so impressed Lesley’s sister, was on the side of the bed that they expected him to try and get out of. Naturally, he was trying to get out the other side. The staff member who came when Lesley called just rolled her eyes before telling Lesley not to get him out of bed.

“It’s easier for us to leave him and let him soil himself in bed. We come and change him later.”

Yeah, we’d been told by people that Reggie knew how much later “later” could be. Dad’s moisture lesions were now so bad that he needs to be changed by a nurse.

Also concerning was seeing that the fancy high-tech laser unsupervised movement detector was plugged into the socket for the call button. If he was in pain, or thirsty or needed any attention at all he couldn’t ask for it.

And Dad had been pretty obviously in pain. Lesley couldn’t get a sensible answer when she asked about pain relief. It sounded like he’d had less than the last time she asked when they said they were increasing it.

And Dad had been pretty obviously dehydrated too. Nobody knew how much he’d had to drink.

“What about the artificial saliva that he’s been prescribed? His mouth is so dry that his lips are stuck to his gums.”

“He hasn’t asked for any.” they’d shrugged.

The list of faults went on. The staff knew, or should’ve known, that they were dealing with a resident with advanced lung cancer and a recent case of pneumonia. Yet his carer was working with a streaming cold.

“Oh, and that senior nurse?” Lesley went on, “The one we were told we could trust? The one who is never available to speak to and never returns calls? I did see her. I saw her pull the hood of her coat up over her head and run out the front door as I arrived.”

The update was WhatsApped to Lesley’s sister and a call came back.

“How did she take it?” I asked, “I bet she either didn’t listen or she said it was just teething troubles.”

“Pretty much. She did agree that it didn’t sound good. Then she told me she was sorry that I was having to do all this and then gave me a list of new things to do to put it right.”

“What about when you said you regretted moving him there?”

“Ignored it. What I regret now is letting them admit him to hospital last week. I should’ve done what you did for your Mum. Accept it was his time, tell them to keep him comfortable and let him go. But she had a fit at the thought of him dying at The Home and I couldn’t face her never forgiving me for letting it happen.”

Dad’s demise at the hands of mesothelioma never was going to be easy. But the first week at what we have to refer to as The Hospital made me fear that it was going to be a whole lot worse than it needed to be.

Bloody hell.

Image Credit

Original image by Nick Gilmore. February 2025