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My wife has been abandoned until Monday for breaking protocol. She wanted to leave hospital early. Nothing they offered her in food or drink matched her crippled appetite. Nor her habitual tastes. So we had a bedside picnic of things she did like on Thursday. A local supermarket provided the goodies. Not that she ate much but it helped to cheer her up.
We pushed for early release and she was delivered home, the next day, by two nice young chaps in an ambulance. So began the titanic struggle for her to gain a few centimetres of altitude!
I had made up a temporary bed for her of thick foam, folding mattress cushions. These were placed where I had removed and destroyed our 1970s, 3-seater settee. [Sofa] She promptly slid straight off the edge of the "bed" and couldn't climb back onto it!
She can't be lifted so I had to whip out all the cushions and leave the single foam mattress on the bare carpet. While she lay on the bare carpet. Now she was flat on the floor she couldn't rise to the height ofa 3" /75mm thick mattress.
Having rolled her onto the "bed" she needed the toilet. She could certainly no longer rise to the home made toilet I had made. So we racked our brains for an alternative. A call to the acute nursing hotline was a complete waste of breath and time. My wife does
not officially exist in the system until Monday. So none of the
promised advice on the website was available in verbal form. We seriously considered calling 112 for emergency services. A hefty firemen might help.
A shallow, soft rubber, gardening tray containing a folded bath towel provided the perfect solution in the toilet arrangements. She had only to lift her hips by 2cm and I slid the tray under. We made do for the two teaspoons of urine she managed in fifteen minutes. It's obvious really: Nothing goes in at the top end. Nothing comes out down below.
Without the promised adjustable "hospital" bed and nurses it is extremely difficult to get my wife comfortable. A living skeleton has no padding on the pelvic girdle. Sharp bones project downwards while she is lying on her back. These points get very sore from pressure and friction. A "proper" bed would allow changes in posture. Promises-promises! Monday is still two days away!
The pharmacist turned up unexpectedly yesterday afternoon with a bag of medicines. No instruction and no nurse to teach me. The carrier bag will have to wait until after the official Monday start deadline.
Next priority is more house clearance. My wife has gone from an eating disorder to terminal cancer in less than a working week. Her previous wardrobe, gardening detritus and countless ornaments are now superfluous. I had been carefully sorting her clothes into large, clear storage tubs for easy identification. I should have been clear, bin-bagging it for charity recycling. That would have saved a wasted week and quickly reduced the remaining storage volume in the bedroom.
All her vast collection of "stuff" needs to be quickly downsized. She is lying on the floor of the lounge/diner. Everything around her is total chaos. Preserved, prematurely, so that she would not feel I had dumped all her belongings while she was in hospital. It is all now completely superfluous to caring for her every need. Several cubic meters of "stuff!" How many decorative flower pots does she now need? She has hundreds! Now she can't even see them from her temporary bed on the floor. Her range of vision will be worse still when she has the proper bed.
Getting her more upright is the next priority. Otherwise she can't eat or drink. Not even with a bendy straw. I fancy a sheet of plywood would provide a firmer head angle but she would just slide down flat onto the floor again. Just as she has on all the pillows I have added.
She went back to sleep at six. So I have retired to my computer upstairs. To tell the world how badly we are coping so far. I wasn't trained for this. My wife would never allow me to fend for myself while she was present. That doesn't make me an idiot. I just need some practice. Forget about effortless parallel processing for the moment. No more day dreaming.
I haven't mentioned the new stove. Bought to replace the long, low, antique, black box. This one is upright has a vast glass door to see the flames. Instead of a closed, iron door which required a praying position while being serviced. As if dodging stray, Russian bullets. The problem is that the new stove doesn't light easily. Not without the firelighters recommended in the manufacturer's blurb.
Firelighters mean shopping. Can I leave her alone for at least 50 minutes? With the doors unlocked in case a promised nurse or bed turn up in my absence? It's quarter of an hour to the shops and the same back again. I feel another home delivery service order might be worth a try.
The last few orders, towards the end of the pandemic, went unanswered. Probably asking for too much stuff for the paltry delivery charge. Volunteers were going back to work. We shall have to see what a deliberately modest order produces. A big bag of nappies and some firelighters will be a high priority.
I have to keep a constant ear out for my wife calling from downstairs. Thank goodness for our open plan living arrangements via the stairwell. We are both increasingly deaf and her voice is increasingly weak. We used to live and sleep upstairs. Now the stairs might as well be K2!
I really ought to go out and open the garden gates to the shared] potholed drive. Or that will be a perfect excuse for "visitors" to claim there was "nobody at home."
It is hard to tell when my wife is asleep. Enjoying a precious break from the waking nightmare. I am creeping about so as not to wake her. Avoiding the creaking floorboard upstairs and preventing the sound of a door closing have become rehearsals. For my intense retraining as a "carer." Paying it all back for my over half a century of being expertly cared for. Which provided me with the thoughtless freedom for my endless hobbies and projects.
I have now washed and re-spun the towels. Now they have to be dried in the only heated room. Where my wife is lying asleep on the floor. I crept in, turned off the lights, put down the laundry basket and then crept out again. I'm developing some new found skill at creeping. Shame about all the rest!
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