When I went to see Ma on Sunday afternoon...after we had heard that she was not well enough for surgery, she was smiley and chipper.
She was not in any pain...I asked her...she said it only hurt when she forgot her hip was broken and she tried to move about in bed.
I went to see the nurse in charge of her care...
She explained that her blood sugars were way out....this despite not having eaten anything...her renal studies were way out too(she was in renal failure) her potassium levels were through the roof.
In the normal course of events they would have put fluids up and flushed out the potassium, but the congestive cardiac failure made this impossible, so they were mopping up the potassium with calcium gluconate...but this was a slower process...so surgery was postponed indefinitely...and my gut feeling was that she would not get any surgery anytime soon.
At the end of visiting, we went home....her situation really worried me.
I got a call back to the hospital around 8 pm.
I went in with the intention of staying with the old girl through the night
When I got into her room she opened one beady eye and wanted to know what I was doing there.
I told her to close her eyes and get some sleep.
She might have shut her eyes for about two minutes, then she started talking to me...every time she talked to me her oxygen levels dipped.
I told her to concentrate on breathing, not talking.
After a little while she gave me the 'come here' finger waggle.
I went close to her so that I could hear her.
She pointed to her right...'can you see what they are doing over there? They are cooking'
To humour her I said 'yes...and you know what comes next?'
' no, what'
'They will want us to eat that lot' I said....'and you know what comes after that?'....she shook her head.
'They will expect us to wash up'
The old bird smiled and said 'that's alright there is a stash of rubber gloves over there'....and she pointed to the dispenser that the nurses used to get rubber gloves.
I stayed until about 10.30. she became increasingly agitated (this may have been the rising toxins in her blood stream, along with the reduction of oxygen) and I felt that she may settle better if I went home, but I hated leaving her.
I blew her a kiss as I left and said 'night night Ma...I will see you in the morning' but in my heart doubted that I would.
The hospital phoned me just before 2am, just to let me know that she was really poorly.
I declined to go in...I did not want a repeat of what had happened earlier.
I did not go back to sleep. By this time my sister had got on a flight from Brisbane. I watched the progress of her flight and hoped she would arrive before Ma departed.
There was no doubt in my mind that we were losing her.
I phoned the ward at 5 am and 7...no change they told me.
Himself took the children to school at 8.30... he had barely gone through the door when the ward rang. I needed to get there, she was fading fast.
We arrived just after 9 am to find we had missed her by justa few short minutes.
I was beside myself with the remorse of not getting there.
The nurse told me that she had not bern on her own, that she and a very young doctor had been with her holding her hands.
The nurse told me that she just slipped peacefully away.
That was really no consolation to me.
All that said, the staff on the ward were enchanted by her...and they looked after her like she was their mum...you could feel the love that surrounded her.
I have never felt more comfortable leaving her anywhere like that before.
The young doctor came to see me. I told her that Mum wanted to donate her body to medical science...and that she had bequeathal forms from Manchester.
She told me that if I ran into any difficulties she would help me out.
I thought that we would be able to pick up the death certificate and find out about registration.
The death certificate was not ready so we were asked to phone back the next day.
To be continued.
She was not in any pain...I asked her...she said it only hurt when she forgot her hip was broken and she tried to move about in bed.
I went to see the nurse in charge of her care...
She explained that her blood sugars were way out....this despite not having eaten anything...her renal studies were way out too(she was in renal failure) her potassium levels were through the roof.
In the normal course of events they would have put fluids up and flushed out the potassium, but the congestive cardiac failure made this impossible, so they were mopping up the potassium with calcium gluconate...but this was a slower process...so surgery was postponed indefinitely...and my gut feeling was that she would not get any surgery anytime soon.
At the end of visiting, we went home....her situation really worried me.
I got a call back to the hospital around 8 pm.
I went in with the intention of staying with the old girl through the night
When I got into her room she opened one beady eye and wanted to know what I was doing there.
I told her to close her eyes and get some sleep.
She might have shut her eyes for about two minutes, then she started talking to me...every time she talked to me her oxygen levels dipped.
I told her to concentrate on breathing, not talking.
After a little while she gave me the 'come here' finger waggle.
I went close to her so that I could hear her.
She pointed to her right...'can you see what they are doing over there? They are cooking'
To humour her I said 'yes...and you know what comes next?'
' no, what'
'They will want us to eat that lot' I said....'and you know what comes after that?'....she shook her head.
'They will expect us to wash up'
The old bird smiled and said 'that's alright there is a stash of rubber gloves over there'....and she pointed to the dispenser that the nurses used to get rubber gloves.
I stayed until about 10.30. she became increasingly agitated (this may have been the rising toxins in her blood stream, along with the reduction of oxygen) and I felt that she may settle better if I went home, but I hated leaving her.
I blew her a kiss as I left and said 'night night Ma...I will see you in the morning' but in my heart doubted that I would.
The hospital phoned me just before 2am, just to let me know that she was really poorly.
I declined to go in...I did not want a repeat of what had happened earlier.
I did not go back to sleep. By this time my sister had got on a flight from Brisbane. I watched the progress of her flight and hoped she would arrive before Ma departed.
There was no doubt in my mind that we were losing her.
I phoned the ward at 5 am and 7...no change they told me.
Himself took the children to school at 8.30... he had barely gone through the door when the ward rang. I needed to get there, she was fading fast.
We arrived just after 9 am to find we had missed her by justa few short minutes.
I was beside myself with the remorse of not getting there.
The nurse told me that she had not bern on her own, that she and a very young doctor had been with her holding her hands.
The nurse told me that she just slipped peacefully away.
That was really no consolation to me.
All that said, the staff on the ward were enchanted by her...and they looked after her like she was their mum...you could feel the love that surrounded her.
I have never felt more comfortable leaving her anywhere like that before.
The young doctor came to see me. I told her that Mum wanted to donate her body to medical science...and that she had bequeathal forms from Manchester.
She told me that if I ran into any difficulties she would help me out.
I thought that we would be able to pick up the death certificate and find out about registration.
The death certificate was not ready so we were asked to phone back the next day.
To be continued.