Thursday 15 November 2012

Thursday 15th November - time sliding by - hospital food

Oh well. Missed three days! I've failed the National Blog Promotion Month Challenge good and proper now!

The days are concatenating into a confused jumble; I can only sort out what has happened by thinking through who which schools I have visited, day by day, and then trying to add in the missing bits. This morning I discovered that I was sitting all curled up in a corner of the settee in the morning, like one of the cats, staring at the television breakfast news without actually taking in the newsweathertrafficreports...

It's not the juggling of the timetables and schedules that finishes me off - although it is pretty wearing. It's the little last-minute adaptations that crash the system and derail the train of thought.

On Monday's hospital visit was very unsatisfactory - I think we only spent about 10 minutes with my mother, and that was all rather confused and disconnected.

On Tuesday we didn't go; my brother was staying overnight so he went with my father. The news was all right - and all right should be good enough, but it isn't somehow. They had a discussion with the medics, who basically said what we were all expecting - making progress, too soon to know, be patient...

On Wednesday we arrived before supper had been cleared away - my word! Grim doesn't begin to describe it, especially arriving fresh from watching Masterchef on television. Under the cover was a soup plate containing a flattened dollop of pinky-beige puree (chicken casserole?), a flattened dollop of pale green puree (peas?), and a flattened dollop of grey-white puree (potato?). Not surprisingly it was untouched. There was also a mug of vegetable soup, an good colour, but the flavour so delicate as to be undetectable. I know, because I tried it. Ugh. I do appreciate the difficulties of providing interesting, delicious, appetising purees, en masse, to be transported on heated trolleys - but my mother is an excellent cook. She serves up roast lamb, chicken liver pate, sauerkraut with three kinds of pork, potatoes with cream and nutmeg, broad beans in mustard sauce, jugged hare, fresh fish, home-made curry, steak-and-kidney pie, nasi goreng....

Depresssed, I called in at Tescos this afternoon to try and find something better. I bought a couple of sachets of superior baby food to test, and also some soup which I planned to heat, thicken with extra potato and puree, and take with me, still warm, in a flask.

Before I could construct there soup, I heard from my father that she had lasagne for lunch - real food, cut into small pieces - and found it perfectly adequate. Oh Wow! She had the stroke on 30th October, and was nil-by-mouth for the first week. Now, 15 days after it all happened, she is eating real food!

She also looks better and seems so much more alert. She can remember how to operate the tablet that we got for her at Christmas to look at pictures and discuss the work that is happening at the flat (renovating the kitchen and bathroom) with plenty to contribute.

What a great way to finish off the week.

Not sure who gets to eat the baby food...

   

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