All good things

come to an end.

The positivity of my mother has evaporated.

Last week she only had one session of speech therapy, and still has no idea of when she’ll get a move to the rehabilitation centre.

She’s trapped on a ward with virtual zombies and no end in sight.

Clearly she can’t go home, as the inability to speak would render her helpless in an emergency, but there must be some other solution to this predicament?

I’ve written down some questions for her to show her doctor, and am hoping they will write down their answers as requested, to enable some sort of dialogue to take place.

Twitter

could become a new addiction for me – fast, easy and fun.

Well thi smakes a change from the doom and gloom posts I’ve been making for what seems like an eternity now.

Update

things seem to be going fairly well at the moment.

My mum has got full mobility and no paralysis, which is itself a blessing.

Her speech is still non-existent, but she’s now receiving speech therapy.

The lack of speech (coupled with her inability to mime anything!) leads to a complex version of twenty questions when trying to ascertain whatever she needs.

She’s on the waiting list to move to a rehabilitation centre, which is more positive news: that being the first step to her getting home.

The whole family came up with me this time and we managed to spend the mornings doing different wonderful things, making it feel more like a sort of holiday than I expected.

The pace of life is so different up there and the opportunities for outdoor fun are almost limitless, with the sea, hills and lakes all within a 10 minute drive.

Having an old schol friend back in the area really helped too, we had great times as two families, watching our kids enjoy the things we did as youngsters.

The only down side is the mountain of work and emails that I’ve come back to, although given how badly things could be going I am grateful for the current scenario, rather than something much worse.

No news

is good news.

Grandma Zilla is stable and has started her speech therapy.

In lieu of anything else I’m treating this as a positive thing. I’m realistic enough to know that there will not be huge daily improvements. As long as she keeps making some sort of progress I’ll be happy.

As an aside to this episode, and to provide some light relief I thought I’d recount this tale from the weekend:

I stayed at my mother’s house whilst in the lakes, obviously, and on one trip out to the supermarket I began to question my own health. As I was reversing the car out of the drive I caught a glimpse of something, in the corner of my eye. It appeared to be some strange sort of creature, and I questioned whether my lack of sleep was causing me to see things.

When I got to the end of the road all became apparent. Round the bend there were six sheep stood in the middle of the road; so I hadn’t been seeing things! My mum’s house borders some fields, so I guessed they must have got through a gap in the fence.

As I approached them, they started to canter up the hill, with houses on either side they had no other option really. As we crested the hill, me never imagining myself herding sheep in this fashion, they headed off to a cul-de-sac, whilst I turned off onto a branch road.

I thought I’d do my good deed for the day and drive round to the nearest farm to let them know that some sheep were loose. I figured they could do damage to someone’s garden, or end up getting hit by a less careful driver.

When I pulled into the farm yard and knocked on the door I was greeted by the surliest farmer’s wife imaginable. I couldn’t imagine her offering eggs for sale with a sunny smile.

I explained why I was there, and she merely turned and shouted: “Frank, some bloody sheep have got out again!” before wandering off.

I was unsure what to do further, and was about to leave, when a man appeared, dressed exactly as I would expect a farmer to be attired.

I explained again to him what I’d seen, and then he asked me a question I didn’t expect: “What sort of sheep were they?”

Rather bemused, I said “Er, they had red dots on their coats.” In an attempt to enlighten him further.

He then replied “No, I mean what sort of breed were they?”

My face must have betrayed my lack of comprehension, so he then asked “What sort of faces did they have?”

Now, aside from the fact that I only saw their backsides as they ran ahead of my car , I am still at a loss as to what he expected from me – some sort of e-fit type description? One had a prominent nose and a scar on it’s left cheek?

I told him that I didn’t see their faces and he merely responded with “Well they might not be my bloody sheep! <sighed> I suppose I’d better take a look then” and shut the door in my face.

So much for  a word of thanks, my good deed went unacknowledged.

I thought farmers were supposed to be cheery characters?

Unbelievable

Just when I thought last week couldn’t get any worse, I got a phone call from a friend of my mother, telling me that she’s hada  suspected stroke.

My world went into a tailspin.

I got home and drove up to the hospital immediately.

When I got to the Medical Assessment Unit the person there barely resembled my mother. She was in a zombie like state.

She’s lost her speech and her movements were severely restricted. She didn’t seem to comprehend where she was or what was happening.

Thankfully by Friday she was able to move a little more freely, and doesn’t seem to have suffered any physical paralysis.

She was moved to a stroke ward, and an initial assessment carried out, along with a head scan to determine the site of the bleed.

Motor function wise she seems ok, if a little weak. Mentally she seems unable to maintain a train of thought, and is unable to read effectively. On Saturday she started writing down single words, so she has some limited form of communication.

Her lack of ability to string thought and words together is clearly causing her considerable frustration, understandably.

Yesterday I was managing to get a smile out of her, and her face seemed less droopy.

She didn’t see any doctors all weekend, and was put on pureed food, as her swallowing refelex is very weak.

Hopefully today we should get the results of her head scan and she should get a thorough speech and swallowing test, with some sort of treatment being started.

I simply can’t believe that after the terrible last year we had, she’s having to go through all this too. It just all seems so unfair.

Time warp

It  feels like a lifetime since I last posted, yet in another way it feels like only yesterday.

Where to start with the recap?

The weekend visit to the Lakes was lovely. Catching up with my oldest friend is always magical, and we’re planning more escapades before they emigrate to Australia (if they get permission to, that is).

Monday brought the most snow I’ve ever seen in Manchester (which covers nearly 22 years !)

The pathetic way our nation deals with a dusting of snow is abysmal.

On a personal level I was reprimanded by my children’s teachers. Being off, I took them to school and joined in with the predictable snowball fight when we arrived in the school yard. Suddenly teachers appeared and told us that it wasn’t allowed. For a moment I felt about 8 years old again!

Killjoys!

Tuesday was the day of the funeral.Very difficult for all concerned.

Godzooky 1 was in floods of tears. he’d been bottling things up since the death, and the funeral obviously made the dam burst. I think it did him the world of good, expressing his grief and relieving the tension.

It made me cry too, seeing my son distraught, and knowing that nothing I could say or do would change the way he felt right then. I’m used to employing distraction tactics to stave off prolonged tears.

It also took me back to my father’s funeral, 16 years ago. It was my first  funeral since then.

The funeral went as well as they can, and we did have some smiles and fond memories at the wake.

One step taken along the path of grieving, although the anniversaries begin this weekend : it would have been their 51st wedding anniversary on Sunday.