Up and down.

Up and down.

It’s becoming a leeeetle bit of a tragic farce now. Phone rang this morning, not long after my alarm had gone off. Early. In fact, I was still dead to the world and didn’t hear the phone when Caroline leapt out of bed.

It was Mum. Badly out of breath. Being carted off to A&E.;

She’d woken up unable to breathe and Dad had called an ambulance. Four of them plugged her into things and carried her away, with my Dad left behind, wondering what was going on.

We got over there pronto and realised we’d better imagine settling in for the day. I left it an hour and rang the hospital. Turns out Mum had run out of some of her meds and this caught up with her rather suddenly. So, assuring Dad we’d both be on hand, Caroline unfolded the laptop to try and make headway on an essay, and I began a multi-pointed dash through the south coast rain to run errands – main one being, to see Mum.

She’d been moved to Acute Admissions by the time I arrived, and she was stable. But under a mask and drowsy. Various tubes in her arm. As I sat with her a while, I looked at her and thought: this is Dad’s primary carer?

It seems likely she’ll recover fine once the missing meds balance out in her system – but she’ll be in for at least a night and possibly two. Think we’ll have to stick around for Dad all night. We’re waiting on some test results today from a sample from Dad that Mum managed to get to a lab yesterday, smart lady. If it’s not the rampant Norwood bug, or whatever it’s called, they’ll admit him to hospital to start trying to get some food and fluids into him at last. He’s had a month of sickness and diarrhoea now; a month.

Mum and Dad live at the top of the hill. At the bottom of the hill, meanwhile, just a skateboard ride away, a rather different major medical moment is overdue – Kev and Fee’s tiddler. They both keep scaring me with emails and texts, but so far these have been all about dancing elves.

So it’s all a bit up and down here at the moment. Good job I’m not trying to run a business single handed, eh?

One thought on “Up and down.

  1. Good grief! Sounds like a nightmare….how do you do it?

    Can’t believe your Dad has had that virus for a month….I had something nasty when I was back in August and that knocked me out for a few weeks….from good health. So I can’t imagine how awful your dad must feel! Yikes.

    Good thing they have you and Caz on hand!

    xx

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