AN ORDINARY MAN - PART 6 - JOURNEY'S END

My Father, with me and my husband following in our Ford Focus estate, which had taken Dad on so many journeys, was blue-lighted to Lewisham Hospital A&E.  He was by now in a very confused state, his blood sugar at just about 2 – dangerously low.

 

Having had the requisite tests, he was moved to the Medical Assessment Unit, put in a bed and ignored for several hours.  I was extremely worried, as by now he had missed several lots of tablets, including the ones for Diabetes and Parkinsons.  I knew this worried him too, as he was very careful indeed to take his medication bang on time, and now the staff were acting as though this was not important – as if he was not important.

 

I asked several people about this; they told me brusquely that he should take no meds until the (by now almost mythical) doctor had seen him. And so, without medication nor food (another no-no for diabetics, who should have regular meals), and only such water as I could persuade him to drink (which I had brought with me), his confusion increased.  His own GP had arrived before he had left home, and had suggested that once any infections had been cleared, a spell in a respite care home, as he had had before, would be a good plan.  Several hours after admittance an assessment officer arrived in M.A.U. His answer was NO.

 

We were expecting this, as we could hear very clearly the conversations from the next bed. The elderly gentleman there had been surrounded by rather loud church members, who obviously thought they were rather important and liked the sound of their own voices. The hospital staff obviously did too, as they were constantly in attendance, offering tea etc – while we and my Dad had been there hours without so much as the offering of a glass of water!

 

We heard all the arrangements being made for this elderly gentleman to be sent to a respite home (the one my Dad was being considered for), while his flat was being redecorated for him.  ‘Lucky Him’ we thought. ‘There goes Dad’s chance of respite’. And so it was he was admitted to a ward instead.

 

At first he was placed in a pleasant 6 bed ward overlooking the park.  The food was good enough, and as antibiotics (given for a chest and water infection) took hold, Dad rather enjoyed having people to talk to.  However, after a week, I arrived to visit him one day to find he had been moved to a side ward on his own at the end of the corridor.  I was told he had tested positive for MRSA and visitors must be restricted; definitely no children or pregnant girls, or ‘vulnerable’ people. And any visitors must gown up.

 

This was a huge blow to a man so fond of his grandchildren and several Great-grandchildren; and with one pregnant granddaughter.  But we of course assumed that as he got treatment; he would be tested and put back in the main ward when clear of MRSA.

 

Not so.  I was told it was not the hospital’s policy to re-test such patients, and he would be kept isolated until discharged.  I was appalled at this, as Dad was already going downhill with boredom, being unable to hold books or magazines and his eyesight failing to boot.  The bedside TV was in the wrong position and far too small, and there was nowhere to put a TV of our own, which staff said would probably be nicked anyway.

 

Then the bedsores started. Or pressure sores as they call them these days,  Small wonder; he was either sitting in one position for hours on end looking out of the window, or laying in bed unattended for hours (unless a friend or family member was there).  They would occasionally move him to take the pressure off the sores, but as I was there most every day, getting more and more ‘down’ myself due to the long journey, and other friends and family visited often, we could see how he was pretty much left to his own devices.

 

Even his former home carers visited regularly; one in particular was so concerned by the lack of care she got quite upset and rang me, saying amongst other things such as needing his pads changed, she considered he was dehydrated and should have a drip.

 

Of course I was often on the backs of the staff for all these things; but anyone who has ever been in a similar situation will know that you are virtually at the mercy of the staff; you do have to go home some time and leave your loved one in their hands, so you have to bite your tongue somewhat.  Indeed my Dad begged me more than once to ‘leave it!’.

 

It soon became obvious that Dad could no longer stay at home alone, even with carers, so after a full discussion with Dad who still had his full mental faculties if not the physical ones, and indeed had long ago discussed this eventuality with me and given his blessing to do what ‘You and Patricia think best’, I began the sad process of finding a suitable nursing home for him.

 

In spite of the fact he could no longer feed himself, nor wash nor even stand unassisted, nor use his hands, all mostly due to the Parkinsons, it didn’t take long for the NHS to decide they were not obliged to bear the cost of this as his illnesses (Diabetes, Parkinsons, arthritis, let alone pacemaker assisted heart) were not ‘Terminal’ and Dad would have to pay his own costs out of his few hundred pounds savings, and a small private pension. He was by now 91.

 

My good friend Terry and I had already visited a home just at the end of my road, but I was told he needed more care than they could offer.  We eventually got him into the home we had liked best of all, a lovely place called ‘Thackeray House’, recommended by a friend, just near East Croydon Station on the tramline which runs quite close to my home.

 

The next sad duty would be to consider cleaning out his maisonette where he had spent nearly all his long 60 years of married life when not away at war, and which had been the happy family home of my sister Patricia and me.

 

With the aid of my lovely friend Terry, who had helped me so much already with lifts, advice and elbow grease (in spite of being disabled herself), and my sister who got very upset because she lived too far away to come down often, and had a very disabled husband of her own to look after too, we began to go through drawers and cupboards which had not been disturbed since the death of our Mum ten years before.

 

We came across bits and bobs we had bought Mum and Dad as girls, and I found a newspaper item from 1961 by one Professor Tillotson who had written about poems I had had been writing since I was 8.  There were thousands of photos too, some from a hundred years ago; school books, war novels and text books, and chests full of the tools of Dad’s trade. You name it we found it.  A hoarder by nature, I found it very hard to throw any of this away, and though I had to cede the point and get rid of literally dozens of black bags of old clothes etc to charity shops., as well as stuff given to a friend for boot sales, we eventually had most of it cleared.  Then decisions had to be made about the furniture and personal items, as well as the flat itself.

 

How sad it was to think that this furniture must be disposed of; much of it made by him in a little ‘workshop’ in the garden of the house my family shared with my grandparents after Dad's return from Burma; I can still remember watching him making the lovely sideboard, (which now graces my living room), and my Dad laughing at me ‘rolling in the shavings’, a joke which followed me throughout my life.

 

Dad was moved to Thackeray House Nursing Home in Croydon on St Valentine’s Day in 2012. It was early evening, and they gave him a meal, which a lovely Philippino nurse helped him eat.  The room was small and overlooked the tramline; not a problem for Dad who had spent the last 55 years in a flat with a mainline railway at the bottom of the garden!  And I hope he took comfort from the thought that me and my family were just 20 minutes away now at the end of that tramline.

 

I felt terrible as I walked away, but happy that he was in homely surroundings with people who really seemed to care, and that week we brought in some small bits of furniture including his special armchair from his flat to make him feel more at home.

 

Sadly though, he began to deteriorate.  The nurse had told me on arrival that he had been discharged from Lewisham Hispital with bedsores, which grew worse as he grew weaker and more disabled.  He became bed-ridden and then unable to swallow.  While he was still able to speak, he had told me and my sister that he wanted a ‘no resuscitation’ note put on his file.  The kindly Sister discussed it with us too, and, with many tears, it was duly put into place.

 

He told me as best he could one day that he had had enough, and from that day on he slowly slipped away from us.  Lack of nutrition meant he was sometimes delirious, and it upset me greatly as he re-lived what were obviously distressing events from his wartime experiences in the Far East, events which he had never mentioned when dictating his ‘memoirs’. It was so not fair, this good and gentle man haunted by some sort of guilt and fear over events of over 70 years ago.

 

I realised one day he had slipped into a very deep sleep, and I called the family in.  The Home provided a good supply of sandwiches and cake for our large tribe, and we all sat round his bed chatting about old times. I really believe he knew we were all there, and enjoyed listening to our nattering and laughter.

 

I scarcely went home after that; the nurses realised he was in extremis and provided us with a room to use to rest in.  One night my husband, concerned for my welfare, said I ought to go home as I was worn out, and come back in the morning after a good rest and a bath.  I was tempted, but something made my refuse. ‘No’ I said ‘You can go but I am staying here’.

 

So me and my lovely husband sat in the armchairs in his room, listening to his laboured breathing and his poor rattly chest.  I got the night nurse in, and she gave him something to ease his breathing.  Sadly, it happened all too quickly to get a priest as Dad had mentioned some time before; but as I suddenly realised with shock that he was actually dying, I held him and kissed him, reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over, until he sighed his last breath at about 4.30 a.m. on 21^st April 2012, the Queen’s 86^th Birthday.

 

The staff were brilliant, they all came to say their last goodbyes and shed tears; ‘such a lovely man’ they all said. His Philippino carer was inconsolable; she came and played him the little tune on her mobile that had always made him smile.

 

I had called my sister and my children, and my best griend Terry came up to say her goodbyes to the man she too had loved and called ‘Dad’.

 

My cousin is an undertaker, so we knew Dad would be well taken care of, and it was about 10.30 a.m. when his son arrived to collect Dad’s body. A bit of rain had fallen, but it was a bright enough day as we watched the van pull away.

 

Life would never be the same again.