Hi everyone, I hope you're all well. I've been absent from the forum for a while, and may be for some time to come (see below), but I've got to dump my woes on someone and you lucky people are it
Three weeks ago, my Mother-in-Law, of whom I was very fond, fell at home and was taken into hospital. The reason that she fell was because she had a chest infection which had changed very rapidly into pneumonia, not unknown at the age of 87 with some one who had suffered from lung problems for some years. The hospital did what they could, but she was very poorly and went slowly downhill. We knew that she had signed a "Do not resuscitate" form a couple of years ago and her carers respected this, allowing her to slip away gently with Mrs h-c beside her. Rather sudden, and very upsetting, but we had always known that this would be a likely outcome. My father-in-law was very upset: he was devoted to her and they had been together for almost 70 years. Unfortunately, he reacted badly: as Mrs h-c says, she can deal with him being teary and emotional but angry is a different kettle of fish, particularly when he takes his anger out on her. After the funeral he got drunk and said some unforgiveably vile and unjustified things to her. We took him back to his house in the hope that he would sober up and go to bed but he told us to leave him and wouldn't listen to reason.
The next morning, we went round to the house to pick him up for a pub lunch with his brother, who'd come over from Norn Iron for the funeral. There was no answer at the door, or on his mobile, which he always has with him but luckily we have a set of keys and let ourselves in, to find him lying on the floor upstairs, unable to move. We don't know - and he was unclear - about how long he'd been there but we suspect it might have been all night. We called out an ambulance and they diagnosed a broken hip and carted him off to hospital. They replaced his hip-joint, which all went well and we breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that we had some breathing space to try and sort stuff out. This morning, ten days after the operation, the Hospital rang to say that he was making good progress and that they'd be discharging him today
. They have made absolutely no effort to speak to Mrs h-c or to assess his home circumstances (he has a three storey house, with the bedroom on the top floor, and no adapted facilities and has never had to manage on his own before). They agree that he needs a home care package but apparently it won't be in place until tomorrow at the earliest and they don't propose even to look at where he lives, to see what needs to be adapted. Mrs h-c has made it clear that if they discharge him before tomorrow, they will be on their own and must take responsibility for anything that happens - at the moment, we're waiting to see what they propose to do in response to this. I am torn between being sorry for my F-I-L and being absolutely furious with him for making a bad situation worse through his selfishness. From the conversation that Mrs h-c had with the hospital, it's clear that he has been telling them a pack of lies about how prepared things are at home and how much back-up we can give him, purely and simply so that he can get out of hospital asap. I have some sympathy with this, but it's all about him, and he has no consideration for Mrs h-c, who is committed to going to an event tonight that she has been looking forward to for weeks, as a small gleam of light in a thoroughly ****** time for her. I've told her that she must go, come what may.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggggggh!
Also, my mate Steve, who is terminally ill and who I have spoken of before, is slowly going downhill and probably only has a few weeks left. We went to see him at the weekend and he was having a good day, so we had a nice time with him but I fear there won't be many more such.
Oh - and my one surviving and much-love aunt died about a month ago. Sometimes you just get a rubbish series of unfortunate events, don't you?
And breathe, and relax........................ keep well, everyone.
