Visit to Mum & Dad

Mum comes out to meet me as I arrive, “Oh good, I’m so glad you’re here, John has fallen out of bed and the doctor is here checking him over”.

Oh poor dad, he is so defenceless and dependent on mum for his every need. There he lies on the floor below the installed adjustable hospital bed in the living room. His body racks with dry sobs as he sees me.
The doctor reports that no bones are broken. Dad can’t speak now. His throat, mouth and tongue paralysed by one of the many strokes that he has had over the last 10 years and he is also paralysed down one side of his body from others and struggles to move any limb efficiently.
His sight is poor, caused by earlier detached retinas, and he has huge red and purple bruises all over his arms and hands where his veins have ruptured and the thinned blood has oozed out and settled just under his thin skin.
He communicates by occasional whispers of mumbled words that I rarely decipher. I see his long bare legs for the first time in years. They are skin and bones.
I caress his clammy and cold forehead and kiss his cheeks, as a parent would comfort a child. I hold his hand in mine and whisper words of comfort.
What words of comfort can I offer though? “No broken bones then” are the first, then I joke about needing ‘leecloths’ for his bed now, (these stop you rolling out of your bunk at sea).
He smiles as he gazes up at me.
A million memories of dad flash through my thoughts. Dad with his pipe, dad striding down the dock, dad sitting at the helm of ‘Kim’, dad huggin me when ‘Picket’ sorted my foot out, dad showing me how a sextant works, dads brown back glistening as he worked in the heat of the day on ‘Kim’, dad helping me with my maths homework, and endless more flashes of memories.
I wonder if he thinks he’s had a good life, I wonder if he has achieved all that he wanted and reflects with pride on a life lived fully.

An ambulance arrived and carted him off to hospital because his pulse and blood pressure were low. Both mum and dad have been struck down with a virus and he was left very dehydrated as a result.
Eventually he was returned to us at 130 am. When I asked the A & E doctor why he was being discharged at that time of the morning he replied, “Well can you tell me where I could find a bed to put him in?”

Wednesday is mums day off and Sam, a paid carer tends to dad for the day whilst Mum, her friend Sheila and I visit Tyntesfield House . We enjoyed the gardens and the guided tour of the house in the afternoon. What a chance to have a day out without the gadgetkids telling me how much they would rather be doing something else and when can they have an icecream!