Limbo in A new era

If it’s not one thing it’s another. I worked yesterday, popped down to see my grandad at lunch and he looked tired, and had pain in his head. Given that he’s had bleeding in there, not surprising.

Mum text me about 6.30pm to say he had been trying to get out of bed and had been playing up for my aunty and uncle, and if i wasn’t crazy busy could I pop down and see he was ok. I popped down and he was sat in the chair looking dreadful, but triumphant, stubborn fool that he is.

Obviously we know how ill he is, none of us are naive, but he looked horrendous, so pale and tired and unwell. I walked off the ward and couldn’t stop the tears, I had to go to the public toilets to sort myself out before I could go back to my ward to finish working.

Went out last night with the girls, drank way too much, mewsed about the fact that it might have been better if he’d died on Friday. Then felt like a horrible person. Although with the best of intentions. he has no quality of life, if he even makes it out of hospital at all, he won’t be able to go home to the house he’s lived in for 40 years. Nobody wants him to suffer, and he’s got pain in his head and pain in his knee now too. His heart is fucked, the effort it took just drinking a cup of tea was painful to watch. His facial droop seemed much worse today, I had to mop up his neck and chin after he’d had his drink. He had strawberry yoghurt all down his front, obviously he’d had it after his tea.

He’s such a proud man. Such a stubborn man. The last few days have been the most undignified of his life. If he realised what I’d been privy to on Friday he’d be mortified. He hates nothing more than me and my sister being upset, I was the only one on Friday able to get him to stop flailing his arms about long enough to have anything done, and when I told him we would fall out if he kept struggling, he stroked my face, and then behaved himself.

We don’t know how long he has left. We could get a phone call at any moment saying he’s had another bleed, or thrown a clot, or had a cardiac arrest. Or he could surprise us all and be well enough to leave hospital, and give us more heartache when we have to decide where he’s going to go.

This is a lose lose situation.

Xx