TEXTS: 27 Nov 2014 – 08.25
Me: Good morning x Dad is ok, I rang the ward. They know the idea is for you to visit so ask when you’re ready. I will come in later this morning. Love xx
Mum: You have to take me down xxxx
Me: On my way! xxx
Email to work colleague: 27 Nov 2014
I have had no confidence in Dad’s ward/doctor and, more importantly, didn’t believe they’d contact me if he deteriorated. Also, my Mum’s sister said he looked worse. So, I drove back to the Midlands yesterday, after having a day at home to pack fresh clothes. It was awful, as you can imagine. For the last week, they have been at opposite ends of the huge hospital site and I spend my days rushing from one to another, visiting/spending time with them but also talking to both doctors. There is no mobile signal in the hospital, so if I’m with Mum I’m always fearful that if something happens to Dad I won’t know, because they wouldn’t be able to call me…and if I’m with Dad, I fear that if Mum deteriorates, again no-one could call me… Its so very stressful… It’s also incredibly hot in the hospital, and the air so drying…but it’s bitter cold outside and was sleeting on and off all day today. So to visit Dad I have had to leave Mum’s private room and walk through a common room to catch a lift down from the third floor to the ground floor. Then, there’s a long, long walk through the hospital, which always seems busy, and so very hot… Then I have to go out through the revolving doors and stride out across the bitter cold car park walking the 5 minutes to the old, old building where Dad has been pushed aside, in the FAEU (Frail and Elderly Unit), on the second floor… That is a sad, sad place indeed and not somewhere my father should be. Not somewhere anyone should be… How has it not been investigated and closed down? As soon as I arrive and push my way inside the stale, arid air hits me, and I am immediately hot and thirsty. I crave seeing my Dad, yet dread seeing him lying there looking small and lost and out of place, while patients who should surely be cared for on a psychiatric ward are shouting out and crying, and my Dad, slowly dying just watches them bewildered, and asks when he is being discharged…
However….yesterday… I was told they now believe Dad has incurable pancreatic cancer, but he refuses more tests to prove it – tests won’t help him, won’t cure him, so I can’t blame him for refusing; I would do the same. I had a meeting with a Palliative Care doctor, who told me he has just days to live. Joy of joys, though…it means he can be moved closer to Mum! She is in the main building, in the Gastro ward, and because they now suspect Pancreatic Cancer, it is logical that he moves there. So, my week of begging and pleading – how cruel it is to separate them after 59 years together – has had no effect on our mighty, enviable NHS, but again, where I have failed Cancer has succeeded, and because of the diagnosis, he was moved yesterday. So, yesterday, late in the day they trundled him into a waiting ambulance, which took him across the car park and over to the main building. He looked so very small and weak, I thought he wouldn’t survive the short drive. He winced at every bump… It somehow took a long time to wheel him along the endless corridors and into his new ward, but it was so very different from the one he had just left. Instead of around 20 beds in a pitiful, bleak room, there were just 4 beds in a clean, tidy side ward on the ground floor… Not up on the third like Mum as I’d hoped, but still, they were finally in the same building, if not the same ward. The nurses were as lovely to me as they were to my father, who brightened considerably as they settled him in. One of them actually made me a cup of tea and brought me a sandwich – how she did that, and why, when she was clearly so very busy, I’ll never know, but I’ll also never forget her kindness. Once I’d gone through the process of settling him in, and because Mum has always gone to sleep earlier, and it was late in the day by this time, I left him for a while and went up to see Mum… I had to tell her Dad’s prognosis…
Obviously, she is worried. They’re deciding next Monday if she should have a PEG feeding tube fitted; it’s very likely. Never to have a comforting cup of tea again… Imagine! I certainly can’t.. She is worrying about how she will cope when they are discharged, and she is looking after him at home again. I had to tell her that he is dying.
So many people in a hospital. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, counsellors and chaplains… but there was no-one to advise me. No-one to tell me what words to use. No-one to tell me how to keep my voice from breaking. How to speak without breaking down completely. How much truth to tell. How to explain why there was no hope. How to reassure her that we will be ok…she will come and live with us in the South West. She will not be alone… No, no-one to offer me support or comfort, or tell me what words to use as I sat by her bedside and told her that the only man she has ever loved will be dead in a few days…..
That was yesterday….. Such a long, long day…
This morning, finally, I managed to arrange for them to see each other…!! I had to wheel my Mum along to the lift, down to the ground floor and along to Dad’s room. He had been moved to a side room… A private room of his own, shortly after I left last night. I wheeled in my Mum, who had carefully checked her hair and make-up before allowing me to take her down. She wanted to look her best, as always. I wheeled her close to the top of the bed, where my father lay propped up… Suddenly, the room was full of porters and nurses, all wanting to see them together. It had seemed, from talking to various people over the course of the last week, that their – and my – predicament was widely known in this part of the hospital, and they wanted to see them together almost as much as I did… Mum struggled out of her wheelchair and reached across to him, and smiled her beautiful smile… Dad looked overjoyed at seeing his sweetheart, and I couldn’t hear what he said, but nothing can describe the pain of seeing that hug. I’m so envious of what they’ve had, what they’ve shared over the years. I’m so sad for them too, at how it’s all unfolding now. Dad’s fear of dying in hospital realised. Even if I was a braver soul than I am, I can’t choose to take him home to die, to nurse him there, because that would mean deserting my mother… At least the fact that they are both in hospital means I can sort of attend to them both…
We all left them alone… Even for me, their daughter, it was far too private to intrude on such a meeting. I will never know what was said, and never want to. I know that when I returned, maybe ten minutes later, Mum looked exhausted, and asked me to wheel her back to her room. She was so pleased to have seen him, but upset too, because seeing him looking so ill made the reality of what I’d told her yesterday sink in.
I’m having a break now in the cafe. It’s such a strain being businesslike with the medical staff, telling my parents it will be ok when my world is caving in. I stayed in their flat last night and there are photos around of Dad looking like my Dad. It’s unbearable knowing these are his last few days. There’s food (not much!) in the cupboards which Mum will never eat; she will never eat or drink again. That’s as unbearable as knowing my beautiful father is dying. I’m coping by treating this devastating series of events as a mini project I’ve got to organise, I suppose. One where I’m not allowed to be emotionally involved. So I can keep going. I’m meeting with Dad’s new Dr after 3pm. It sounds awful but since he can’t get better I now want him to die sooner rather than later. I’m terrified of him starting to be in pain, whereas at the moment I think it’s “just” discomfort, though how much, I really don’t know. He was asleep when I popped in a while ago and I wanted to just sit with him,but desperately needed to get away too, to breathe. I was so stressed about arranging for them to see each other I feel some small sense of achievement that I managed to sort it out. I can’t even think about what’s next. Work has been so good about it all, which is just as well because I can’t leave here at this stage. I suppose if his doctor says he’s not going anywhere in the next couple if days I might pop back home but I think I’m in their flat now, for the duration.
Anyway, I wanted to “talk” to you. You’ve been so kind and understanding lately. It’s made me feel better, putting this down here. “Thanks for listening”…!
“If you listen to the wind very carefully, you’ll be able to hear me whisper my love for you.”
Andrew Davidson