Hospital Update!

Its been an horrendous night to say the least. Found my mother on the bedroom floor and unable to get up and with her painful right hip, I couldn't get her to turn to get up either. She didn't really know how she fell, but thought she had slipped on the floor. She was extremely distressed and it was a very stressful situation. The Careline Team had called an ambulance, but had warned me that they were extremely busy and that they could be two or three hours! I went downstairs and phoned Careline to ask them to send out Swift Response – whilst in the middle of this phone call the ambulance crew of three turned up, far earlier than I had expected.

They did loads of checks, including an ECG and found something not quite right with this, but I can't remember what and also my mother's temperature was raised and she was very hot. They thought she may have an infection and combined with her main diagnosis (illness) they decided she needed to go to hospital. After doing a blood test as well, I think the ambulance left around 4am. I stayed behind to sort the house out, pack a hospital bag for mother, feed the cat etc etc and then headed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It was nice hearing the dawn chorus as I made my way to King's Lynn!

Mother was on a trolley in a cubicle in A&E ALL day, as there were no beds! She was given Oramorph to reduce her painful hip. It was both mentally and physically exhausting – having to explain the entire history of the last few weeks and then both falls yesterday and this morning, to various members of staff as each one carried out their assessments. Mother was sent for an X-Ray, but nothing was broken or fractured, which was not what we expected.

We drifted in and out of sleep throughout the day – both of us felt so desperately tired. Vivien arrived in the afternoon and sat with us for the rest of the day. After another ECG, more blood tests, a stair assessment and mobility assessment, it was decided that mother could go home if someone was staying with her. She was also issued a commode and requested to sleep downstairs. We eventually left at 6.10pm – well, mother and I left and Vivien stayed to wait for the medication and followed us home to Holme later. On the way out we bumped into a lady who also lives in Holme who we know really well – she had also fallen over last night!

Mother was so tired, she couldn't get out of the car, so I left her there whilst I got the commode out and in place in the house and the hospital bag etc. She was still in the same nightdress she had fallen in and looked very bedraggled as did I! Got mother into the house and she immediately fell asleep on the sofa – the cat jumped up and also went to sleep on her lap. Vivien arrived with the medication, but they didn't give her a discharge letter!

Vivien and I worked hard to sort everything out. Mother would now be sleeping in what was father's bed in the living room, but we needed to rig up a light, so she could get out safely and use the commode in the night – this took longer than expected to do. After all the chores, we managed to get mother into bed. I left and returned to King's Lynn and Vivien stayed the night to keep an eye on mother. I don't know how I managed to drive home, but I got there safely.

Vivien had a very difficult night with mother and didn't sleep a wink – very difficult times for us all.