Exhausting Day!

Monday 2nd January
I am so exhausted I can hardly type! Slept extremely soundly last night and woke up at 8.30am. Got up slowly and after washing hair etc I went downstairs and sat on the sofa for a moment. When I opened my eyes it was 4pm!!! So I might as well have stayed in bed!

Whizzed over to the care home at Heacham and collected lots of clothes of Father's to wear in hospital, just in case he is well enough to sit out this week. It was really upsetting to see his empty chair in the midst of the other residents. Stopped at the indian takeaway in Hunstanton and picked up a vegetarian biryani and peshwari naan for Mother and I to share. Dropped off some things at Mother's house and spent an hour with her – she looked very tired and the house was cold, even with the radiators all on. The Christmas tree needles were falling heavily – will have to sort that for her this week.

I returned to King's Lynn and dropped off Father's clothes to his ward and spent an hour with him. He was awake in bed when I arrived and seemed pleased that I was there. He looked settled and a fairly good colour in his face, but his breathing was heavy and he seems to have lost strength – he could hardly squeeze my hand. The nurse in charge of him overnight, put up another bag of fluids whilst I was there and did his obs – BP was high: 179/77, Sats 98% and temperature 36.6. The nurse said his BP had been higher than that, earlier in the day – she also said she was going to order a nimbus mattress for him tonight, which is a better air mattress than the bog standard one. Father told me he was cold and he didn't feel particularly warm when I felt his skin – he only had one thin blanket over him. There were two more blankets in the room, so why had no one put on a second blanket on at least? – he is 90 years old for goodness sake! Apart from that, he had been positioned well.

I was told that the blood culture results had now come back from the first day Father was admitted to A&E and the findings were Urosepsis – there was also E-Coli in his urine. I don't know that much detail about this and don't have the energy to 'google', so will look into this more tomorrow. Goodnight.