Blog posts with this title concern my mother's current situation. Family and friends will know more of the background and context, and this is primarily for them.
As I write this I'm listening to Christmas Carols, sung by Kings College Choir, Cambridge. It is the first time we have put the carols in since last Christmas. Lovely.
I visited this morning; found my mother just waking up, achy, uncomfortable and feeling generally low. Once she had taken all her pills, and the pain-killers had kicked in, she felt a lot better. (She has been in a lot of pain since the stroke, three years ago, as her brain incorrectly interprets signals from her left side as pain).
I gave her breakfast - half little tub of plain yoghurt (her choice). That seemed like quite a lot more than she usually has. It was a little alarming to see (and hear) the swallowing problem in action, with some coughing and "grockling" noises going on afterwards, but after a few moments she was fine.
We chatted about this and that - I was wearing a pair of ear-rings that she had given me several years ago ("Are those the Abu Dhabi ear-rings? Did I really give them to you? When?"), but she wanted them back ("Sorry about that!") - so I took them out and put them in her ears (where they looked pretty good, I have to say!)
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| heavily cropped photograph to preserve anonymity! |
I left, as she wanted to go to sleep for a bit, and I had to go to work.
In the afternoon, my father and my husband dropped by. They looked at the Wedding Anniversary pictures again, and then, while my father was off sorting out some chicken soup for her, she gave my husband detailed instructions as to which butcher to go and buy a Chateaubriand steak from, and how to cook it, as she has decided that's what the two men should have.
I'm not sure if she managed to stay awake for the soup as she sent them away so she could go back to sleep. The nurses must be very used to bringing a little tray of something or other up only to find their customer fast asleep....
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