Well where to start? Maybe the beginning would be a help...
Dad came home from hospital last Thursday evening, what a calamity that was! The ambulance took an hour from the local hospital, 10 minutes away...their SatNav got them lost!!! Dad was so frail and weak that all he wanted was to go to bed. After making him comfortable we left for the night.
Friday morning, I arrived to find him in tears, the news having just hit home that his cancer was terminal and it was a day of tears for both of us on and off. With visitors aplenty...the district nurses and Hospice at Home teams arrived and talked us through help that they can provide, they are wonderful ladies and we rely on them so much. A night sitter was arranged too because dad was so weak.
Saturday morning I arrived at ten to find dad being given a strip wash in the bathroom by one of the home carers from Hospice at Home. After she had gone dad revealed that the night sitter had never arrived! After phone calls to the duty district nurses, it was discovered that they had got lost and given up! That night a young Polish girl arrived at nine thirty and she was marvelous but...she hadn't been able to understand how to gain entry to dad's building and he had fallen trying to get to the door to let her in!
So now he has bruised ribs to add to everything else, and last night the sitter didn't turn up until 10.30 instead of ten! I'm seriously thinking of spending the night there myself then that way we know he's okay.
Other than all that, dad seems to have accepted it all now and that in turn is helping us come to terms with it. Hopefully things will settle down once everyone gets into a routine. Yesterday the local Sue Ryder co-ordinator came to talk us through all the options too and was wonderful as everyone else has been.
