I feel your pain Yokel.
Probably not quite as bad as your frustration what with it being you mum, but my step-dad is going through a similar thing.
A few months back, in a dark car park, he fell as he bumped in to his car. He broke his hip. He's a big man - 6'5". What should have been a routine operation (well, for a man with late stage heart failure anyway) turned in to a living nightmare that is still unfolding, day by day.
He contracted MRSA. He has had 2/3 operations (who's counting?) each one with a significant risk of mortality. He did in fact nearly die twice. They messed up his DNR as well, as you do...
He then had a few small strokes, nothing major, but still.
My mother has been spending half her life in hospital to be with him. Only months after a very protracted death of her youngest son (yeah, my little brother) to a very nasty form of bowel cancer. He had a tumour the size of a basketball on his arrse/back when he died. As if that wasn't enough.
She also had to have a life saving operation for a crippling bout of gall stones/pancreas stuff.
Life comes at you quick.
But death and disease comes at you faster.
I was looking at having my entire living family wiped out all within a few months of each other not so long back. This happened as well at a time when I only started grieving for my brother. BAM BAM SLAP.
My mum is in good shape now. I kind of moved in with her for a bit while she has been looking after my step-dad. A bit of hoovering, a bit of cooking, washing a few dishes. A bit of moving furniture. My life is on hold. I'm ok with that. It fills me with a sense of purpose that I did not have before, just doing my
duty.
The other day my step-dad got moved to a rehabilitation hospital. Well, that was the start of the real fun and games if you want to talk about physiotherapy. He was going to get rehabilitated whether he liked it or not. In short, they crippled him for life. He will never walk again.
They took it too fast (you had one ******* job) and accused him of having anxiety and 'not helping himself'. He's in absolute shit state. It's a form of torture what he's been through. And he is a very stalwart and stoic man - I can say this as he is the polar opposite to my personality type. Even the surgeons said he was a very resilient man. You know.
But it's not the surgeons he has to worry about. They are absolutely top-notch. I swear those ******* could bring just about anyone back from the dead. They are an absolute credit to the NHS. And then they starve you. He's lost a massive amount of weight. It is severely distressing for me to see. Even though we didn't get along like best buddies - he's my step-dad - I would not want to watch any man go through what he has.
They came the other day to put a hospital bed for him in my mum's little cottage. Big FO hoist to move him about. Bed rails. They didn't see that one coming.
He's getting 2 carers 4 times a day, so we should be thankful for that. They have also been short-listed for sheltered housing as well. Thankful for that as well.
I'm writing this more in a response to your comments on physio - whilst letting off a bit of steam myself -- hope you don't mind - but they seemed to have only two modes of action: DEAD SLOW and FULL STEAM AHEAD.
The nurses and the doctors were saying get out of bed, no, stay in bed, no get out of bed - no, stay in bed - no get out of bed!
The physiotherapist was hardly about and just going through the motions. There is not the resources for them to take the requisite time to heal patients, so they
process them instead, and cripple them for life in to the bargain.
In short, they did not have a ******* clue what they were doing. No one taking charge and overseeing his general case. It was a fight to bring in the Cardiology team too - you would think they would consider late stage heart failure a complication. No one has taken responsibility.
I don't wan to slag the NHS - best doctors, nurses in the world. But they have some right ones too. He was even assaulted by one nurse who hit his legs with a board. On top of that our next door neighbour has been caught illegaly accessing our medical records - she's a nurse and she wanted to know when the old codger was going to croak it so she could move her alchie buddies in.
That's the short version!
When sorrows come they come not single spies but whole battalions.
Brace yourself lad, because the storm is near, not past.
Poems - The Storm Cone
THIS is the midnight—let no star
Delude us—dawn is very far.
This is the tempest long foretold—
Slow to make head but sure to hold.
Stand by! The lull ’twixt blast and blast
Signals the storm is near, not past;
And worse than present jeopardy
May our forlorn to-morrow be.
Poetry Lovers' Page - Rudyard Kipling: A Song In Storm
Be well assured that on our side
The abiding oceans fight,
Though headlong wind and heaping tide
Make us their sport to-night.
By force of weather, not of war,
In jeopardy we steer.
Then welcome Fate's discourtesy
Whereby it shall appear
How in all time of our distress,
And our deliverance too,
The game is more than the player of the game,
And the ship is more than the crew!
...
Be well assured, though in our power
Is nothing left to give
But chance and place to meet the hour,
And leave to strive to live.
Till these dissolve our Order holds,
Our Service binds us here.
Then welcome Fate's discourtesy
Whereby it is made clear
How in all time of our distress,
As in our triumph too,
The game is more than the player of the game
And the ship is more than the crew!