Reveille

My grandfather died this morning. He went very suddenly in his sleep.

All things considered, not a bad way to go.

He will be missed not least for the hole in the world that he leaves behind.

Dominoes

Saturday saw my mother, me and my two sisters descend upon my grandfather’s bedside like priests come to hear the final confession. We had been summoned, all of us, by the ward sister the day before, whose urgings had persuaded my mother that her original planned visit on Monday was simply (and I quote) “too far away”. We had to come now. ASAP.

This coupled with the news that my grandfather had been prescribed morphine on Friday had us fearing the worst. I mean, what else are you to think? Morphine is a pretty hefty painkiller. They don’t administer it without good reason. Or rather, bad.

So we were all there. Awaiting the arrival of the nursing sister of the day to speak to us. Apparently (according to another communiqué from the hospital) she wanted to speak to my mother in person to explain the situation more fully.

My grandfather lay before us. White, thin, skeletal. His skin now so transparent as to be almost non-existent – it looked as if a mad calligrapher had drawn veins and arteries in bold ink on parchment. His outline was a folded clothes’ horse of stick bones and rounded corners under the bed sheets. Piteous really when I think of how he used to be: always slim and wiry but always, always so vital.

The nursing sister eventually graced us with her presence, mystified by our request to see her. It seems she had no further information to give us. My grandfather was certainly very poorly but he was comfortable and stable. No real change from how he’d been over the last 2 weeks. It seems our urgent attendance was not really required. The priest need not be called away from his lunch. The morphine too was something of a red herring. Yes, he’s been prescribed it but he has not so far been given it – because he is in no pain whatsoever and does not need it. It is there merely “in case”.

Cue wry looks from us all. It is of course nice to know that although my grandfather is still at death’s door he is not yet, as we feared, ringing the doorbell. But it is irritating in the extreme to have lived with such a black picture of his condition for the last few days when the paint, barely dry, was only as grey as it has always been.

What havoc a little misinformation can cause! If the hospital can’t get their story straight between themselves my family and I stand little chance of ever staying well informed.

The only information that we received that could be deemed in any way useful was the sister’s expert opinion that it is highly unlikely that my grandfather will ever return home again. He needs 24 hour care. If he leaves the hospital it’ll be to go to a nursing home. The thing he most wanted not to happen. Alas, he is now so far gone that I doubt he’ll even notice let alone care where he is.

So, for the first time in my life, the house of my grandparents – the home of so many happy memories for me – will be completely empty and lifeless.

This seems another small death in a long line of small deaths that are inevitably leading to a bigger.

The dominoes are toppling but at least the game is not yet over.

The D Word

Nurses, doctors, medical staff. They do a tough, backbreaking, heartbreaking job. I couldn’t do it. Not at all. And I want to make that clear because there is a part of me that is just instinctively opposed to slating anyone in the medical profession.

But I can’t deny I am becoming more and more frustrated, disappointed and just let-down with the service my family is getting from the local hospital.

My grandfather is still in hospital. All week we’ve been getting reports from the staff on his ward that he is fine, that he is stable, that he is doing well. Yesterday morning we even got a fantastic report that he was doing very well indeed and was up and chirpy.

Then yesterday afternoon, out of the blue, a consultant advised us that actually he is doing very badly and is very poorly indeed. So much so my mother is rushing down from Sheffield tomorrow to see him. Things don’t look good.

I realize people can go downhill fast – especially when they’re old – but this really sounds like there has been a case of crosswires and misinformation. I sometimes wonder if the hospital staff are even talking about the right patient when they give us information about my grandfather.

There is also a massive and often very worrying omission of facts.

My grandfather has developed Clostridium difficile (C. diff) – not for the first time I hasten to add. It seems to be as a direct result of being admitted to hospital and pumped with antibiotics. He is very poorly with it and given his frailty the hospital has few options of how to treat it. Higher dose antibiotics could have an adverse effect and surgery to fix the resultant lump in his stomach / abdomen is off the cards because it is doubtful he’d survive an operation.

As C diff is very contagious it makes visiting him difficult – I have two young children and my parents both work with food and children; we need to be careful about not carrying any infection away from the hospital. Luckily my mother had tipped me off about his C diff diagnosis before my last visit and a good job too. The staff nurse, when told who I had come to see, merely waved me to his room and didn’t check to see if I knew of his condition or make any attempt to ensure that I took adequate precautions to prevent the spread of the disease. For all she knew I was just someone off the street who had no prior knowledge of his condition whatsoever.

This lackadaisical approach appals me. Again it comes down to poor communication and a reluctance to pass on necessary information. Surely this should all be part and parcel of the care package – keeping the next of kin fully and accurately informed?

Or, with the supremacy of the internet, should I be doing my own online Google research and Wikipedia-based prognoses? Or maybe checking the hospital’s Twitter account for updates on the state of my grandfather’s health?

My grandfather is dying. I shouldn’t have to bang my head against a brick wall to maintain a link that is already fading fast of its own accord.

The Hokey Cokey

After spending much of the summer in hospital my grandfather was sent back home again about three weeks ago with a “home care package” put into place to look after him. Two healthcare visitors four times a day to get him up, clean him, feed him, put him back to bed, etc. Not ideal but as he has adamantly refused all suggestions of going into a nursing home (which I don’t blame him for) this was the only option.

The family had reservations over the proven effectiveness of this package but had to roll with it.

Some of you will be aware of the logistical nightmare that ensued just getting a hospital approved bed and a key safe installed into his home to make this package viable.

Over the last few weeks the carers and the hospital – for all they have my admiration for their hard work and dedication – have slowly driven me up the wall with their continually mounting requests for my grandfather.

I’ve had phone calls and found notes requesting a microwave, a washing machine, a new razor, new trousers and shirts, new underwear, drinks beakers with lids, plug extension cables, etc, etc...

I don’t begrudge any of these items. Plainly they are necessary to make looking after my grandfather easier and therefore to make his life more comfortable. What I do begrudge is the assumption that I can just drop everything instantly to get it all sorted out. But I shall let that go. In the bigger scheme of things it is not important.

On Wednesday I visited my grandfather at lunchtime as usual. He wasn’t right. I’ve noticed him slipping away mentally for a few months now but Wednesday was the worst I’d seen him. He was very confused and wasn’t even sure who I was when I first arrived. He also kept talking about a parade that we’d watched that very morning on a bench over the road. Well, I needn’t tell you that there is no bench over the road, there was no parade, I’d been at work all morning and my grandfather is 80% blind.

I felt a huge sadness settle over me.

Even without having worked in a nursing home for 10 years in my twenties I know this is the beginning of the end. My gran got this way just before she died 5 years ago... spending most of the time asleep the mind drifts in and out of memories and dreams and everything blurs into one long stream of semi-consciousness.

He is loosening his grip on the world one finger, one thought at a time.

I dropped off the purchases I’d made on his behalf, made a note of the new requests, made sure he was comfortable and, at the end of my lunchbreak, headed back to work. I left a note for the carers who were due to visit in a couple of hour’s time detailing my concerns at how confused he appeared to be.

At 5.45 that evening I had a call from one of the carers to say that they’d found him sprawled on the floor. In his confused state he’d tried to get up out of his chair – possibly forgetting that he can no longer walk very well – and had fallen onto the wooden surround of the fireplace and hit his head. He was now back in hospital once more. Thankfully not too badly injured – the cut to his head was very superficial. He’d been very lucky.

A flurry of contradictory phone calls then followed from the hospital and various family members. The hospital seems to be big on spreading misinformation. He was coming home. He has a urinary tract infection. He has a chest infection. He has a chest infection but the doctor isn’t aware of it. They were keeping him in. They were releasing him. They were keeping him in for observation due to irregularities in his heart scan. On and on. And around it all the hospital’s bizarre reluctance to go into too much detail or to give out too much specific information over the telephone.

What? In case Al-Qaeda are listening in and might be tempted to recruit my grandfather as a suicide bomber? He wouldn’t have the strength or the mental wherewithal to press the detonator let alone have the physical strength to walk anywhere with half a tonne of explosives weighing him down.

By Thursday morning, once the dust had settled, they were all finally singing from the same hymn sheet. They’d admitted him to a ward and are going to keep him in for “a few days”. They’re giving him antibiotics to combat his various infections (their records of which seems to be alarmingly ephemeral) and are doing their best to correct his very low potassium levels.

So he’s “safe” for a few days at least.

But to be honest I’m wondering if he’ll ever come home again. Even if his physical health ever allows it, mentally he is already in the next room.

General Hospital & Major Cock-up

I have bored memories as a young child of having to sit through General Hospital because my mother used to enjoy watching it. That and Crown Court were the bane of the afternoons in my early years. I hated them but I do recall being faintly impressed with the dynamic efficiency of the hospital as represented on television. And that impression stayed with me for a long time. I long thought that hospitals were models of precision timing and perfectly coordinated activity.

It’s so disappointing as an adult to realize that like most things in the UK they actually run like two badly oiled bricks.

My granddad has been in the local hospital for most of the summer. He had a fall. Got a chest infection and a water infection. One thing after another and it seemed unlikely he’d ever come out again.

But coming out he is. This Tuesday after lunch apparently despite being unable to walk and therefore unable to care for himself.

He does however have all his marbles and has exercised his right to be sent home. Although some of the family are against this and would rather see him shoehorned into the nearest nursing home I’m of the opinion that as an adult he has a right to make his own decisions and die where he likes. And let’s be honest; that is what this is really about. Thankfully the law is with me on this. As he is fully compos mentis it is his decision and nobody else’s.

Getting him home however is proving to be a nightmare and this is where the badly oiled bricks come into it. I was plagued by phone calls all day Friday (which marred Tom’s 2nd birthday a little). First he was being sent home Wednesday. Then Monday. Then finally Tuesday after lunch. A care package was going to be put into place. Phew – very glad to hear that. 2 care workers 4 times a day will visit him. But before all this can occur he needs to have a hospital bed installed downstairs and a key safe put into the front porch so the care workers can gain access to him as and when.

Could I let them into the house to do all this?

Yes. No problem in theory.

Except that Saturday – the day when all this was supposed to occur – came and went with no sign of the bed arriving and Age Concern who handle the key safe side of things being shut all day.

It’s now Monday and I’m at work and cannot now just drop everything at an hour’s notice (the best the hospital can give me regarding the bed installation) to disappear for God knows how long while they shove a bed into my granddad’s dining room. And then possibly have to make a second journey to the house to meet with the Age Concern handyman (who also hasn’t got back to me yet) to get the key safe installed... because to coordinate the two together into one trip is, well, like trying to drive two badly oiled bricks up a hill.

It really feels like the hospital’s left arm doesn’t know what its right arm is doing... which isn’t what you want from a place whose primary function is to coordinate care...

*Sigh*

Thank God my granddad hasn’t been booked in for a tonsillectomy and an endoscopy... or there might be some very unusual organs in a pickle jar by now.

The Troublefone

It has been a black weekend with the telephone.

Normally it sits – not exactly loved but tolerated – on a shelf in the corner of the room and disturbs us but rarely. A polite ring every Friday evening from my mother to stay in touch. The odd call from work that may elicit a sigh or two. On occasion, when the phone is being a very naughty boy, it allows call centres to sneak through and sully my family quality time. On such occasions it gets a curled lip as its reward and its receiver banged down unceremoniously into its cradle.

Bad phone. BAD phone!

This weekend though it became a true delinquent. I’ve lost count of how many times it rang and always, always, always with crap news:

My granddad had a mini collapse on Friday and has ended up in hospital with diarrhea...

A false fire alarm activation early Sunday morning saw me stuck at work from 02.30 am to 07.30 am...

We were then plagued by endless phone calls after these events from people chasing their own tails for "more up-to-date information..."

A seemingly endless klaxon of ringing.

So not a lot of sleep was had over the weekend.

I returned home Sunday morning like a zombie, in time for breakfast and to find the kids were already up and bouncing off the walls.

Trying to catch up on sleep was a joke.

Every time I tried to chill and get my head down the phone would go yet again with more updates about my granddad or work colleagues enquiring about the fire alarms.

The phone seemed to sense just when my eyes were closing and my head beginning to nod...

Ring! Ring!

Ring! Ring!

Aaaargh!

Anyway my granddad is stable and relatively OK. That’s the most important thing. He’s having various tests done this morning but is quite chatty and has some of his old feistiness back.

Which is more than can be said for me.

I feel like a wet rag tossed into an inanimate pool of pre-primordial soup. It’s not a good look.

*Sigh*

Anybody want to buy a telephone?

One careful owner. Shotgun pellets come imbedded as standard.

But For The Grace

I’ve been suffering from bear-with-a-sore-head syndrome for the last few weeks.

Not without cause I hasten to add: illness (still got a dodgy tummy), essays due in at Uni, the mad pre-Christmas rush to get loose ends tied up at work, my novel’s ground to a temporary standstill as other priorities take over, Tom has had a permanent head cold since starting at nursery which often leads to broken sleep for all of us, money worries, Christmas stress...

I believe the phrase is “at low ebb”.

But there are times when I am reminded of how damned lucky I am. My best mate’s youngest son is constantly in and out of hospital – some kind of chromosome defect has left him with poor eyesight, poor hearing, an inability to retain his balance and a host of other problems. He’s going to be in and out of hospital for the rest of his life I suspect. He’s only 5 and has already had it tougher than most.

Then there was the news item on TV this morning. Something like 10% of children in the UK are now thought to be subject to some kind of abuse – most of it carried out at home by family members.

I looked at Tom, sitting in his feeding chair, munching on a Malted Milk biscuit as yet another green line of snot wormed its way down to his biscuit encrusted top lip and I gave him a big hug. I got a “yum” back but this was probably a comment on the biscuit rather than the hug.

Life ain’t so bad.

Ashes

It’s been a very stressful couple of days. My mum’s sister – my aunt – died suddenly of septic shock / kidney failure late on Saturday night.

Although she was in hospital for another illness it wasn’t life threatening and this sudden development has taken us all by surprise. She was only 54.

Unfortunately the situation is made worse by her estrangement from much of the rest of the family, bad feeling between her and my mum and her and my granddad (her father). It’s made much worse by the fact that she was – and I hate using this term about her – an alcoholic and, like all alcoholics, abused those she thought had wronged her to her pub mates and all who would listen... the result being that we, the family, feel unpleasantly under scrutiny and a little besieged by “well meaning busy bodies” who are all intent on “having their say” or making their wishes known. It’s all been polite so far but I’m already feeling like I’m having to pour oil onto troubled waters just to maintain the fragile status quo. It almost feels like we, the family, aren’t supposed to have any rights.

To complicate things my aunt left no will – despite the urgings of many of her friends to do so – and no indication of what she wanted with regards the details of her own funeral. She seems to have accounts and investments scattered all over the place and mountains of un-filed paperwork. Sorting it all out is going to be a nightmare – the all pervading sense of estrangement makes only makes the job more difficult.

The icing on the cake – and maybe this is selfishness on my part – is that the funeral is going to be next Thursday: Tom’s first birthday, and my first reaction was a sense of disappointment that we aren’t going to be able to celebrate his first birthday in the manner that we’d originally planned. But maybe it’s fitting in a way – as we mark a death so we celebrate a life?

As for my aunt. I feel a deal of ambivalence towards her but mostly sadness. I personally got on with her ok though I was, of course, always aware of the “family war”. But that all seems so empty now. What good has it done anybody? It’s just left a load of business that can never be finished. The saddest part of all this is that my aunt chose her friends from her local pub to be her first point of contact when she was in hospital rather than a member of her own family. Therefore they were with her when she died and knew about her death many hours before we did. And we only knew about it because my mum’s cousin is a nurse at the hospital. The family, I know, feel quite offended by this snub but for my part I just think it’s deeply sad for my aunt. What a miserable state to be in. In her defence though, I doubt that my aunt had any idea that she was going to end up on her deathbed when she was first taken into hospital...

Having to visit my granddad on Sunday morning and inform him of his daughter’s death wasn’t a nice job but with my parents in Sheffield it fell to me to deliver the news. It’s not something that can be done over the phone. The grief took him hard. I was glad that I was there. What must it feel like to be burying your own child? As a parent myself I can’t even go there in my imagination...

So, folks, that’s been the last two days. Apologies for the fragmented nature of this post. My thoughts are everywhere and nowhere at the moment. The shock of the news and the shock of the practicalities are weighing me down. I don’t feel myself at all. And the road ahead feels dark.

Even God Loves A Good Brunette

I interrupt my normal television programme review service to bring you a quick update on the mother-in-law situation.

She’s still in hospital and is still receiving speech therapy. Her vocal chords and tongue are still paralysed. Other than that though she’s in fine fettle.

Fine fettle enough to be extremely rude to Karen who journeyed down to visit her on Monday. The MIL wants an MP3 player so she can while away her time in hospital listening to a choice selection from her classical music collection. Fair enough. No problem. Karen did a great deal of research over the weekend to find the player that would be most ideally suited to her requirements – both in terms of technology and ergonomics (her dexterity is still not fully restored).

However the chosen unit is £50+. Not a great deal of money to the MIL (who is, shall we say, “well off”) and not a great deal of money to Karen’s other relatives (who are the same). But it is a lot of money to us – Karen is still on maternity leave and gets a bare £100 a week and my local authority wages are... well, the basis of a tragic-comedy. Anyway, the MIL suggested we pay for it and recover the money later from one of Karen’s relatives.

Sounds simple enough except – and this will sound horrible – the chances of getting the money actually reimbursed are very slim.

Why is it that people who are rolling in dough are the ones who are most lax about paying up?

Anyway I acknowledge that all this is really just a storm in a teacup in the bigger scheme of things...

...except that when Karen tried to tell her mother how poor we are at the moment her mother (and this is quite unbelievable) put her hands over ears and refused to listen!

I was furious on Karen’s behalf when she told me later.

Such childish, selfish behaviour. It’s the type of thing our boy, Ben, does when we are trying to tell him something that he just doesn’t want to acknowledge as true. It’s acceptable behaviour for a 6 year old. But unacceptable for a 68 year old?!

It basically says: I’m not interested in your problems; they’re not important and are unworthy of my consideration. If she could have spoken I’m sure she would have shouted “Blah blah blah” over the top of what Karen was saying.

For those that may read the above and merely shrug: just imagine if someone did that to you when you were trying to express a concern or voice a legitimate opinion.

Unfortunately, this dismissal of other people’s problems is a constant MIL trait, so we can’t even comfort ourselves with the thought that this is unusual, off the wall behaviour.

And all this occurred on top of the fact that Karen had a hellish journey down to see her mother in the first place: bad weather, an accident on the M40, baby Tom not well and Karen not well herself. My constant question to myself at the moment is: why on earth do we bother?

My one consolation – and maybe this exposes a central wickedness to my personality – is the thought that maybe there is some poetic justice to the MIL’s current condition. It’s deeply ironic (and rather apt) that someone who has caused so much damage, pain and misery with her voice over the years now finds herself totally unable to use it.

Folks, great news!

There IS a God.

P.S. In case you hadn’t guessed it. Karen is a brunette...

How To Suck Eggs

Things with Karen’s mum are looking better this week. The word processor we got to her on Friday has proved a real boon and has improved her communication with the world around her a hundredfold.

Unfortunately it’s also improved her ability to cheese off the world around her with long, roving lists of unreasonable demands... including wanting her own duvet and bed-sheets brought into the hospital from home (and then laundered), a mini TV, a radio and other bits of hardware plus her Black & Decker Workmate.

Ok. I made up the last one but you get the picture.

The TV and radio I can understand but bringing in your own bed-sheets to a hospital is ridiculous. The hospital is clean and (unusual for a British hospital) the ward is infection free. To bring in foreign sheets is a real risk and I doubt the hospital will be offering a home laundry service! And Karen simply can’t be trailing dirty and freshly laundered duvets back and forth to Slough all the time.

Karen got home yesterday looking like she’d run a marathon, climbed a mountain and then done a full day’s work broking a Middle Eastern peace deal on top of it. To top it all Tom’s feeds had got so messed up he woke several times in the night rather than just the normal once. The knock-on effect is that Karen is like a zombie this morning.

However, there is a positive. The hospital have started speech therapy and are hoping to get her mum’s vocal chords and tongue working again over the next 5 weeks. Other relations have now all been contacted so hopefully other visitors will now start calling in to see her thus alleviating some of the pressure on us...

Lastly, the consultant, after listening to or rather reading another long barrage of demands, said something to Karen’s mum that was very pertinent. He told her that deep down she needed to accept where she was with the illness – physically, emotionally and environmentally – and to try to derive some peace from that acceptance.

I suspect, however, that is a life lesson she really needed to have learnt many years ago. Sadly I’m not sure she’ll be able to manage it now... she’s simply too old and much too stuck in her ways.

Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?

Karen and I are exhausted. We had to be realistic and give up any thought of visiting Karen’s mum over the weekend or else risk Karen’s health as well. As it was Tom had a bad day on Sunday – possibly a cold of some sort – and wouldn’t have been up to travelling.

Whether Karen’s mum will be understanding about this remains to be seen. I can’t go into too much detail for reasons of family confidentiality but let’s just say she’s a very difficult woman.

I leave it up to the reader to fill in the blanks.

On a brighter side, although Karen’s mum is still unable to talk/eat she has retained the use of her limbs and mental faculties. Karen and I managed to furnish her with a word processor on Friday which frees her from having to point to letters on a sheet of paper in order to communicate with the hospital staff or indeed anyone. I dare say the poor nurses are already ploughing through great epistles and imperial requests of legal complexity as they go about their day to day chores on the ward...

Karen is planning to visit on Tuesday and Fridays – although more frequent visits would be preferable to try and do anymore with a 3 month old baby is just asking for trouble: it’s a 4 hour round car journey there and back. I’m already paranoid about Karen undertaking such regular journeys on her own with Tom as it is and, to be honest, neither the weather nor other drivers improved my confidence during the trips we made on Thursday and Friday last week. But what else can we do? Even if I could get the time off work to go with them we still have to consider Ben – he starts back at school tomorrow. It’s a very messy situation.

We’ll do what we can, when we can. But I mean to see to it that we also take care of ourselves too.

At the end of the day, as cruel and cold as this may sound, my first priority is Karen and the children. For me they come first and everybody else comes second. And that unfortunately includes the ill and the invalided...

Come Friendly Bombs...

As some of you will know from the comments on the previous post Karen's mum suffered a stroke on New Year's Day. By an amazing coincidence her granny also had a heart attack on the same day. Both are recovering in hospital.

Without going into too much detail Karen's mum suffered a stroke to the brain-stem region of her nervous system/brain - mentally she's fine but at the moment is unable to eat, swallow or talk... so communication is carried out by the aid of an A4 sheet of paper with the alphabet printed onto it. To say it's very frustrating for all concerned is an understatement.

Karen and I are making regular journey's down to Slough to visit her in hospital... with a 6 year old and a 3 month old baby in tow this is a massive undertaking to organize so my blogging might be intermittent for a week or two - but I will keep you all posted.

Anyway, this has been my first experience of Slough and aside from jokes about The Office I can see little that is noteworthy in the wide, compressed and desolate thoroughfares of Slough. Sir John Betjemen was right - what a thoroughly drab, down-at-heel, concrete pancake of a place!

The highlight of the journey was spotting the Lego offices. The lucky buggers have all the latest Lego models lining their office windows. Freebies I bet. Lucky gits. I would give anything to work there...

...if it wasn't in Slough!

(It isn't fit for humans now...) too bloody right!

Baby Grow

Tom in now a little over 6 weeks old – it’s hard to believe! In some ways the time has flown by and in others it feels like Tom has always been with us. That last is a really nice feeling. He was weighed again on Tuesday and is now a hefty 10lb 2oz. He’s putting on the beef nicely and is turning into a lovely chubby little baby.

He’s also started smiling properly too – smiling in recognition of Karen and myself and in response to happy tones of voice. All signs that he’s developing as he should.

My only regret at the moment is that we’ve still not been able to take him to visit my granddad. Shortly before Tom was born my granddad was admitted into hospital with an infection which turned out to be C. Diff. He ended up being kept in for 4 weeks and Karen and I were advised by the doctors to stay well away to prevent any chance of the infection spreading to Tom. It can be fatal in adults let alone in new born babies.

He’s been home now for 2 weeks and frustratingly the official medical advice is still to keep Tom away – my granddad is still complaining of feeling ill and has stomach problems. It’s quite heartbreaking to keep him and Tom apart but Karen and I daren’t risk doing anything else.

I spoke to my doctor about it yesterday and she at least said it would be safe for me to visit him provided we kept physical contact at a minimum so all being well I’m going to nip out to see him during my lunchbreak today. But as for Tom she thought he’d probably be safe but it was best not to risk it. What my granddad needs to do is inform his own doctor of his ongoing problems and get himself tested.

Persuading him to do that is going to be easier said that done, however, as he’s terrified that they’ll take him back into hospital. And I really sympathise with that but I guess the crunch is if he wants to see Tom then he needs to ensure that he’s totally C. Diff free.

I just hope I can get that across to him without hurting his feelings...

Burn Your Money

Call me a misery guts but I hate bonfire night and would quite happily see the sale of fireworks nationally banned except for professionally organized displays.

As a nation we quite rightly worry about our kids carrying knives and guns but then are quite happy to let them purchase shedloads of gunpowder and explosives every year. Are we insane?

Yes, I’m sure most kids are sensible and trustworthy and mature enough to handle the responsibility of dealing with live explosives… but unfortunately there are always too many who patently aren’t. I’ve personally seen fireworks being thrown, had fireworks launched at me and know of people who’ve had lit fireworks stuffed through their letterboxes.

Every year – EVERY YEAR – people are injured by fireworks; usually children. It is never ever worth it.

And that’s before you tot up the financial costs involved. Fireworks cost a staggering fortune. Who has money to (literally) burn in this way? Plainly loads of us do. I had a friend who each year would spend over £200 on fireworks. I’d roll my eyes and make disparaging comments but at the end of the day he was right: it was his money to do with as he liked. My yearly offer to withdraw £200 from his bank account and burn it for him was always met with a stony silence. Can’t think why – I’d have saved him an entire evening of standing around in the freezing cold with a load of pewling, complaining infants. Cos at the end of the day, you see, he was doing all this for his kids.

Rubbish. What kid demands his parent forks out £200 on fireworks? The kind of kid that needs a huge kick up the backside and a reality check…

In my opinion, bonfire night has got out of hand. It’s big, big money and people feel pressurized to partake and to do it “even bigger than they did it last year”.

But look at the cost – and I’m not just talking about finances: polluted air for days, littered streets, terrified animals (my Nan had to practically anaesthetize her pet dog for the entire fortnight around bonfire night) and otherwise perfectly healthy people having to spend time in casualty with third degree burns or worse.

It just isn’t worth it.

Restricting the sale of fireworks to professional displays would mean a reduction in air pollution, costs that are spread between everyone who goes to watch such events (which would make the financial burden on everyone more manageable), the detonation of fireworks restricted to maybe one or two nights of the year instead of spread over the entire effing month and hopefully a large reduction in the number of fireworks related injuries.

Everybody’s happy.

Except of course for the people who make a fortune each year selling millions of pounds worth of fireworks to the easily manipulated…

But who gives a big sparkly shite about them? As far as I’m concerned they can all light their blue touch-papers and swivel…

Home

It's been an incredibly busy week in the Herrick-Blake household and we're all pretty shattered. However, it's lovely to have everyone home.

Karen and Tom were allowed to leave the hospital on Friday afternoon and since then we've been acclimatizing Tom to his new surroundings. He was a little freaked out at first - I guess he'd got used to his life on the hospital ward and suddenly everything was different: new sounds (a lot quieter), new smells, new sights. He was quite fractious Friday night but since then has been a lot more calm and settled.

I must admit I never thought I'd be one to go "all soppy" but quite honestly I can sit and look at him for hours and love holding him. Every facial expression is a delight and that goes for every sneeze, gurgle and poo too - the latter seeming to be very hard work for him at the moment!

Anyway, I hereby promise not to let this blog turn into a one-track paean to babyhood and baby rearing - I know such things are not everybody's cup of tea - but please do forgive me if I occasionally lapse into baby-centric rhapsody every now and then...

I'm totally in love!

One From The Ward...

...well not quite!

Baby Thomas Arthur (or Arthur Thomas as we are now vacillating over the name...) was successfully brought forth into the world at 10.41 this morning: 7lb 3.5 oz and as cute as a button.

He had a good feed and then settled down to sleep for much of the afternoon.

Karen is doing well though is incredibly sore and tired and the edge has been taken off her senses by various painkillers.

We're both, however, incredibly happy.

The whole thing happened so unbelievably quickly I still can't get over it. I won't yabber too much about it here right now as I am shattered and need to get Ben sorted out foodwise... just wanted to thank you all, my lovely blog readers, for your warm wishes and support over the last few months. Both Karen and I have really appreciated it and it has made such a huge difference.

Photos will, I promise, follow shortly...

The Day Before

And so we come down to it...

I’m not quite at the panic attack stage yet but I’m definitely experiencing that all pervading ambience known as The Fear. Butterflies, lack of concentration, inexplicable bouts of innumeracy, language failure, lots of trips to the toilet and a general desire to be at home embellishing the nest ready for the baby’s imminent arrival

Karen is the same. Huge excitement mixed with huge anxiety. It’s like looking forward to Christmas but knowing you have to sit a difficult exam at midday. In a word: the collywobbles.

And everything feels somehow different already. The sun brighter. The sky bluer. My stock of clichés larger.

Anyway, I’m currently at work tying up the loose ends and making sure the old place doesn’t fall apart in my absence. Once I’m home this evening work life will officially cease for the duration. Our boy, Ben, is going for a “sleep over” at a friend’s house and, all being well, will join us at the hospital tomorrow afternoon. Karen and I, meanwhile, will prepare ourselves for tomorrow morning. We have to be at the hospital for 8am. I have no other details than that. It could be a very short wait or a very long one.

To re-fashion a well known saying: I could catch a 12 pound trout with my breath...

Countdown

No, not a paean to twice-nightly Richard Whitely (alas – I’ll save that for another day) but a notification to all interested parties that baby Tom’s arrival is now a mere 7 days away.

The cot bed is ready. The pram is ready. Sleepover arrangements for Son No. 1 are set up and code green. Karen’s hospital bag (complete with food goodies to supplement the hospital slop) is all but zipped up and ready to go. The boy’s school has been notified. Work colleagues are primed. The family are on tenterhooks. The hospital is on permanent and ever-ready standby...

But I don’t feel prepared at all.

It’s weird. It’s not like I’m unaware of what is about to happen (hey, for a guy that’s a big thing) it’s just that I can’t seem to make it feel real. Life at the moment is carrying on much as it always has and all seems perfectly normal. I can’t imagine how things are going to look and feel next week with our family increased to 4 at all.

As this is Karen’s second I guess she has a better idea of what to expect but me – I’m blissfully ignorant. I guess it’s going to be something of an adventure... one that’s going to last a lifetime. But hey – what other kind is there?

I must admit though I’ll be glad when the hospital bit is over – to have Karen and Tom and the boy all safely home again with our feet resting on a big pile of dirty nappies, necking down a cup of tea and wondering if we’ll ever sleep through the night again. That seems a long way off at the moment.

In the interim I’m back at Uni this week – tomorrow in fact: Poetry In English Since 1945. A little bit more up my street after the interminable ravages of the 18th Century novel last term. And a countdown of a different sort is also occurring. The promised money from the untrustworthy Mr CM has until Friday to arrive. Still no sign of it.

My money’s on Tom arriving first...

Rough

Apologies for the delay in posting - for some reason Blogger has been experiencing one or two technical problems and as a result I've been unable to publish sweet FA since the weekend.

Below is the post that I've been trying to publish since Monday morning...

It’s been something of a rough few days.

Karen and I had to head over to the hospital Sunday evening as baby Tom was unusually quiet – enough to get us both quite worried. As soon as we arrived Karen was wired up to a scanning machine for 20 minutes and I’m relieved to say that all proved to be well. Not only that but there are early indications that Tom might try and pre-empt the date set for his Caesarean (9th October)...

We no sooner arrived back home than I found a telephone message from my mother reporting that my granddad had suffered a fall – a result of a high fever and an ulcerated leg – and had been admitted into the very hospital that Karen and I had just come back from! He had a comfortable night but unfortunately took a turn slightly for the worst yesterday. He's reacted against the anti-biotics they've pumped him full of and is now suffering from diarrhoea and an infection.

There was utterly no communication from Mr CM over the entire weekend. To tell you the truth it was no more than I expected and I’d had an email to him drafted up since Saturday morning informing him of my intention to take him to the Small Claims Court if I didn’t receive full payment in 7 days. I was then going to add the court costs onto the amount owing...

As it was, I received a telephone call from him yesterday at the 11th hour - a much more polite and "hey buddy" type of call than Friday's frosty dialogue - and he appeared to completely capitulate. He's asked me to divide the invoice into two separate ones and send a copy of one to himself and the other to his business partner (they're splitting the cost 50/50) and they'll see that I'm paid within the next 7 days.

Hmm. I'm not getting my hopes up too much but my instincts are that my strong stance on Friday may have moved the mountain... I'll wait and see. I've kept a copy of the draft email just in case. It may yet get an airing!

Talking of ignorant and annoying people – I never did hear anything more from the hack from the London Standard so can only assume that the piece I wrote about Nigella was either never used or was used but they couldn’t be arsed to tell me or send me a copy. Either way I’m pretty cheesed off though more disappointed with the lack of manners than the lack of publishing credit.

But as I’ve been feeling as rough as a badger’s arse for the last two days anyway I’ve consoled myself with a couple of sick days off work and have been recuperating by reading, watching TV and generally bumbling around the house in a warm and comfortable fugue… It’s actually been quite blissful.

Doctor Yes Mister No

I’ve had the day off work today to accompany Karen to the hospital for a final scan of baby Thomas. I’m pleased to report that both mother and baby are progressing well and all is on target for Tom’s emergence on October 9th via caesarean section. If it’s good enough for an emperor of Rome it’s good enough for us…

The two-week limit I set my non-paying web client is now up and Mr Chauffeur Man still hasn’t coughed up the dough he owes me. Cue a short but civil email to him this morning that can best be described as “tart”.

Unless his business account is lodged with Northern Rock I’ve requested that the invoice be settled by Friday…

After that the gloves are off.

Sleeplessness

The baby’s not even born yet and I’m suffering sleepless nights!

For well over a fortnight now I’ve been waking up around 5am and just lying there, absolutely exhausted but nevertheless wide-eyed and awake and as far from sleep as it’s possible to get. The cumulative effect is that I am now practically a zombie (though hopefully with less offensive BO) and have the ability to fudge up the most basic of physical actions. Weirdly my thought processes don’t seem to be diminished one iota but then, if you’re already at rock bottom, there is no where else left to fall.

Anyway there are number of external factors which are no doubt exacerbating this state of sleeplessness: my neighbour is a postman and leaves the house around 5.30am every morning and seems unable to do so without stomping down his stairs and slamming the door like Marsha’s enigmatic daughter from Spaced. I’m not yet in a position to confirm or deny that he wears the same stripy stockings as well. My boy is also waking up pre-5.30am and as quiet as he tries to be there’s a vast difference between a 6 year old’s idea of quiet and quiet per se. Anyone with kids will know what I mean.

But in all honesty I think I’m just waking up early due to internal factors. When Karen and I lost the baby last year the experience was pretty horrific and although it turned out that Karen was perfectly safe I nevertheless went through the classic “pacing of the hospital corridors at 4.0am” while Karen was carted off to the operating theatre and for 90 minutes I had no idea what the hell was going on. Since then my love of hospitals and all things medical – always pretty ropey at the best of times – has waned rather drastically to the point I get hives at the mere thought of us having to undergo yet another hospital experience.

And of course, now that the date for the caesarean has been set the clock is ticking and so are my facial muscles.

I know, I know, it’ll all be fine.

But I worry.

Set Dates And Done Deals

Karen saw the hospital consultant this morning and – fingers and toes crossed – we’ve been given a date for the caesarean that Karen has requested to bring young Thomas Arthur into the world.

October 9th has been booked into the diaries of all concerned – about 5 days before the official due so hopefully Karen won’t pop early (her words) and ruin the best laid plans of mice and men.

We have to go for a final scan on September 17th and then it’s just a case of waiting and trying to arrange the logistics so that practical matters run smoothly. It’ll be a first if they do!

Other news: Ben starts his new school tomorrow and in about 45 minutes time Karen and I are off to see our bank manager to reschedule a loan which should free up enough cash to render our current mortgage worries unnecessary...

Like I said: fingers and toes...

It’s A Boy. Probably.

Karen and I went for the 20 week scan at the hospital yesterday… or rather the 21 week scan in our case.

It was quite a nerve-racking ordeal as this was the point last year that we discovered the baby was dead. Hence we didn’t particularly have good associations with the process.

I’m glad to say, however, that all is very well in womb-land and baby is developing nicely. Good strong heartbeat and everything appears to be in order. Obviously there is still a way to go but so far things are looking good.

They also had a look to see if they could determine the gender (at our request). After a bit of nosying around they were pretty sure that 'baby' is a boy.

We’re dead chuffed. To tell the truth, boy or girl we don’t really care as long as they’re fit and healthy and have a penchant for winning the Lottery. Actually that last part is an optional extra. Fit and healthy will be rich enough for us.

Names… names…! Now that we know the sex we’ve been mulling over a few names.

We’ve unfortunately discounted Napoleon and Ludwig. And Anakin too, much to the chagrin of our boy, Ben.

Instead we’ve pretty much settled on Thomas Arthur. But hey, that could all change between now and October (the due date).

Enjoy the scan above. Tom wishes to say “hi”…

Just Because It Amused Me...

X-Ray Vision

Despite still being laid low with an awful dose of this year’s variant of the flu virus Karen very kindly gave me a lift to the local hospital yesterday afternoon so I could keep my appointment with the highly esteemed foot specialist... regular readers of this blog will know of my recent foot problems; irregular readers can bone up here.

Cue half an hour of being sent one way and then the other due to an IT breakdown which meant the receptionists were reduced to using paper and high-lighter pen to impose some sort of order on the hordes of injured and diseased that were clamouring for palliative attention in front of their desks.

Cue half an hour of sitting in a waiting room that positively howled with the décor of an Eastern Block abattoir...

...until I was finally called into a radiation proof room to have my sorry-looking feet X-rayed from a multitude of various angles and uncomfortable positions.

Then we had another half an hour wait while the specialist looked at the resultant images before I was eventually called in to see him.

And the final diagnosis?

Well, certainly I have hallux valgus but the condition (at the moment) doesn’t warrant an operation of any kind or intervention aside from decent shoes and insoles. The pain I was in, dear people, was actually caused by the fact I’d had two broken bones in my foot! Bones that now – thankfully and miraculously given that I’ve been walking on them for the last 2 months – have healed quite nicely and knitted together very healthily.

Amazing. Especially as I also underwent 4 weeks of fairly rigorous physiotherapy not long after the foot injury first occurred.

No wonder it bloody hurt so much!

Anyway Karen’s being really sweet and says she feels bad that I didn’t get all the sympathy that I deserved at the time so is now intent on giving it to me belatedly.

Me? I’m gonna put my feet up and milk it for all it’s worth!

I’m Never Gonna Dance Again

It’s official. I have abnormal feet.

Persistent pain in the foot I injured a few weeks ago - plus since Sunday new pain inexplicably in my other foot (making the original injury seem like light relief) - forced a return to the doctor’s this morning in an attempt to get to the root of the problem. I mean I’m hobbling about like an old man and am in constant pain. It’s getting ridiculous.

Anyway a brand new surgery meant a brand new doctor (I won’t bore you with the mundane details just accept that I’ve changed my doctor for utterly no controversial reasons at all) and this brand new doctor was certainly on the ball.

Of my foot, in fact.

It seems I’m suffering from hallux valgus resulting in metatarsalgia.

Basically my feet are foobarred.

To paraphrase my doc: the bio-mechanics of my feet are not right resulting in incorrect and ineffective load bearing capacity, bunions, calluses, a lot of pain and worst of all toes that are being pushed outwards and upwards causing cross-overs and yet another obstacle to walking correctly and without pain.

No chance of a quick fix then?

Nope. None at all. I have to see an Orthopaedic specialist at the local hospital (which could take up to 4 months to arrange), buy "orthaheel" insoles and ultimately will have to face surgery if I "still want to be active in 10 year’s time..." In the same breath my doc also warned me that foot operations are not to be entered into lightly as they are invariably very painful and the recovery time is both painful and long. However that option could be years away as yet.

Oh great. At least it won’t spoil Christmas then.

Sigh.

It seems my dancing days are over.

And my chances of winning the London marathon are much reduced...

And for those of you that bothered to follow the links above and read the resulting information: NO I DO NOT WEAR HIGH HEELS!

I've always preferred granny slippers...