Family Update!

Things have been extremely difficult since mother left hospital and that's putting it mildly. Vivien and I don't have a clue what we are doing or supposed to be doing and it feels like everything is spiralling out of control. Our mother is getting weaker daily and hardly eating at all and is asleep more than she is awake – her pain is increasing and we have to administer Oramorph to relieve her symptoms on top of her 'pain patch'. It is tearing me apart to see her like this, as she has always been such a tough cookie. We have have had an OT out to support us and other health professionals. I have been caring for her since she came out of hospital on Friday until Sunday – this period included phoning 111 and doctor visits and my complete breakdown in the early hours of Sunday morning. Vivien joined me on Sunday and we have both been with mother since then.

It has been extremely time consuming, attempting to update my blog with the RBA bird news via my iphone, which just has enough signal upstairs in my mother's house to get the internet. Many of you may think this is completely unimportant right now, but my blog is important to me and this helps me to have a tiny bit of normality in my life – not giving up the blog after eight years hard work! I have changed my mother's BT package to a Broadband package (which works out cheaper than her current package anyway) and from Wednesday we will have the internet in the family home, which will be useful for obvious reasons, including doing the on-line food shop!

I have not been in my house much, but returned today after an appointment with a health professional at 3pm to discuss the current situation and then arrived back home at 5.30pm. My baby Blackbirds are now teenagers and were being fed by parents on the top of my fence, which was sweet to watch and the garden is now a jungle! I managed to change the bird ponds and top up the bird table for the Blackbirds, which they seemed very pleased about and after that fell asleep on the sofa. I have no food in the fridge aside from margerine and a few eggs, so all I had when I woke up was jam on toast, before doing the on-line food shop for mother and Vivien. Good night!