Saturday

It was a team effort today. The plan was to pay a visit to Lesley’s dad’s house to collect his mail and start getting ready for another visit by Lesley’s sister. It all made sense. On a previous visit, The Dog had jumped all over the spare bed and had left a trail of muddy footprints. Dad’s washing machine has two wash settings – ‘Not Nearly Enough Of A Wash’ and ‘How Long!!??’. That meant bringing all the laundry back here. That’s not practical for Lesley to manage on the train. Lesley’s still too tired and stressed to trust herself to drive so I would. The Dog has not been left at home on her own since we picked her up from the rescue 5 years ago and she loves the walks from Dad’s village so she came too.

It all made sense.

The Dog twigged what the plan was as soon as we started gathering all the walking boots, harnesses, towels, treat pouches, poo bags, leads and lines and bagged them up. She was ready for an adventure.

Dad hasn’t been in the house for more than a month so the domestic chores were minimal. Nothing to clean or put back together, no meds to collect or sort out. We headed off out for a walk.

Spring had definitely sprung. The sun was out, the Snowdrops were at their peak and the Skylarks filled the air with song. The Dog had regained the sense of assurance that had been a bit shaky recently and knew exactly where she wanted to go. She gave us a quick glance over her shoulder before each turn – a gesture that we assume means “Can we go this way?” – and led us through all her favourite spots. As usual, we started with The Allotments. She wanted to eat some grass and she knows which of the plots have just the right weeds. She won’t eat just any old grass. From there we headed back across the village to the church and the farmland beyond.

Two hours of sunshine, snowdrops, skylarks, mud, sticks, streams and treats later, The Dog took us back towards Dad’s house. We were just passing the day centre where Dad used to go when Lesley’s phone rang.

“Oh God No!” she said.

It was Dad’s nursing home. The place we have to refer to as The Hospital so he doesn’t think he’s in a home.

He’d had another difficult night. The wandering in the early hours was getting worse only this time he had crawled across the floor and had collapsed in the middle of the room. He’d been put back to bed but now they couldn’t wake him up. They were calling the out of hours GP.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can!”

“No need to rush. They’ll be ages yet.”

When we arrived at The Hospital we saw the Doctor’s car in the car park. Lesley asked the driver whether he was there for her dad.

“Yep, we’ve only been here a few minutes. The Doctor is with him now.”

Lesley went in. The Dog and I went home. We didn’t have to wait long for an update.

“The doctor had already finished when I got there. They’re very concerned about Dad’s agitation.”

“So sedatives then?”

“Yeah, essentially they’re going to start him on the end of life meds.”

“Blimey!”

“I know. He did say that that didn’t mean the end was necessarily close. It could be weeks. But he’s a danger to himself getting distressed and wandering around on his own. They just need to calm him down.”

“That makes sense.”

“He did say one interesting thing though. He was looking at the consultant’s notes from when he was discharged after the pneumonia. They said that I’d agreed not to admit him again. I told him that’s not how I remembered the conversation and surely my duty with LPA is to act in his best interests. He explained that if something serious happened again then the stress of another transfer and time in A&E would far outweigh any benefit from any treatment they could give him even if it was treatable. He’d end up worse off no matter what. When he put it like that, not authorising another trip to A&E seemed right.”

“So you’ll say leave him where he is and just make him comfortable?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Good. How is he now?”

“Still asleep. Not responding to anything. They couldn’t even wake him up for the doctor to examine him.”

The nurses filled Lesley in on things they’d seen yesterday evening. Dad had been very resistant to having his pad changed. He’d been insistent that it be done a particular way and had been giving instructions that made no sense. He wouldn’t listen to anyone. Yep, that transition from Unhappy and Uncomfortable to Uncooperative and then to Unresponsive was all too familiar.

A little while later…

“I don’t think there’s any point in me being here.”

“Try holding his hand and talking to him. You’ll know if he knows you’re there or not.”

“Tried that. Nothing.”

So that escalated quickly then! It was only on Tuesday that the big meeting between the home’s nurses, Dad’s Social Worker and the palliative care nurse concluded that he was doing OK, that he was “stable”, that he had “ages left” and that he wasn’t even a falls risk. A few days later he’s been found collapsed on the floor, still unresponsive 12 hours later and a doctor is saying he can see him declining in front of him.

Bloody hell.

Author’s Note

My Mum was in a nursing home in the Thames Valley for a year and a half until she passed away in December 2024. My Father-in-law went into the same home the following January. But Lesley’s sister didn’t approve and made the situation so awkward that he had to be moved. The image is not of the home itself. I used AI to generate an image of a typical modern nursing home. Names and locations have been changed or hidden to protect the identities of those involved. Which, for the new home, is probably just as well.