If you add on a surprise trip to Nymans' Garden, because cousins from Northern Ireland are over on a coach tour to visit Chelsea Flower Show and various Gardens, including Nymans, it becomes a very long round trip indeed! Seeing the cousins and catching up with all the news as we wandered round admiring the Spring border and the azaleas was a real pleasure and a lovely pause in an otherwise crowded and eventful week.
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| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Dovecote%2C_Nymans_Gardens_-_geograph.org.uk_-_255336.jpg creative commons |
My Godmother has been worryingly ill for a couple of months, and we've been visiting her at her house or meeting her at the hospital after tests several times a week for about ten weeks now. The time has come to reconsider where she would be best - at 90 years old she has at last decided that she doesn't want to be fiercely independent anymore, and we have started a process that will hopefully result in her moving to sheltered accommodation near us.
However
the 'barium swallow' a week ago was the last straw in her being able to consume anything at all - even water could only pass through her throat in tiny amounts. I wish, I wish, that we lived closer, that I wasn't working, that - all sorts of things - but wishes belong in fairy land and there are no magic wands and flue powder in the real world. She went into hospital last week, so frail that they didn't dare attempt any kind of intervention except a drip for now, and maybe see what could be done next week.
Yesterday, when we went to visit, she had gone! Where? Down to surgery to have a stent fitted, so that she would be able to start drinking fluids again. Maybe even YOGHURT! She is amazing - the staff at the hospital are amazing. We found her sitting up in bed looking so pleased with the world.
Her life will be immeasurably improved by the stent; however, we all know, herself included, that the long term is not going to be all that long. How long? Who knows. She has eosophageal cancer. Last week she said that she was too frail to consider any treatment - but now - who can tell.
At the moment it feels as though we can't make any plans at all. I do hate that stage in any kind of project - when it is 'all change' but with no answers to 'how? what? where? when?'
Meanwhile, I try and resist the lure of blotting everything out with hours of Freecell
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| www.xkcd.com |
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