Wednesday

When Lesley had come home last night she was really low. Her dad had slept all day. He’d slept until two carers had come to change his position in bed. That had woken him up.

“OH COME ON!!” he’d shouted angrily.

Once disturbed, he began thrashing and kicking again. The nurses tried, and failed, to calm him.

There had been more changes during the day. His breathing was distinctly more erratic and noisy. From having a distressingly dry mouth because he sleeps with his mouth open, he now had “oral secretions”. The “Death Rattle” they used to call it.

Lesley checked with the nurse.

“These are definite signs aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

Lesley’s sister declared she was going to stay overnight with him again. Lesley couldn’t. She’d always promised herself that she didn’t want to be there at the end. She didn’t want her last memories of him to be ones where he was suffering.

“You can leave if you want to. You don’t have to stay.” her sister had said.

“We each have to do what we have to. No judgement either way.”

No judgement? Hmmm…

But Lesley did seem to be holding it together pretty well. She doesn’t know that I heard her crying in the shower though.

We slept badly. As usual.

But the phone call in the early hours never came. The staff at the nursing home confirmed he was still with us.

He’s been at the “Probably not going to last 24 hours” stage for over week. He’s been on the syringe driver since Friday.

Lesley left us after breakfast to head for her dad’s bedside again.

Once again, The Dog was reluctant to eat her breakfast and reluctant to go for a walk. Today I got taken towards the supermarket in the middle of the village. The Dog had been disappointed too many times by a fruitless search for Lesley at the railway station so we had to look elsewhere. The walk was a bit less stop-start than it had been yesterday but The Dog was still panting and yawning with anxiety.

Not knowing when Lesley would be coming home or even whether she’d want anything to eat when she did come home, I made myself some lunch. The Dog would normally be sitting next to me drooling while she waited for her share. Not today. She went to bed instead.

Lesley was pulling into the drive when we came back from our afternoon walk. The Dog’s mood improved instantly.

“Well? How is he?”

“I remember you saying about your Mum’s skin changing colour and how her hands started to turn black at the end. He did that a couple of hours ago. I couldn’t watch any more after that.”

Lesley had wanted to let the nurse know. Her sister tried to stop her. Her sister denied that his face had turned grey, that his hands were discoloured. As if denying it was happening was going to stop it. But the nurse confirmed what Lesley saw and what she thought it meant.

I had to read what I’d written after Mum’s final hours. My guess was that he had maybe 6 to 12 hours left. As it turned out, I was wrong. Lesley’s sister phoned to say that he’d gone less than an hour after Lesley had left 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.