A Traumatic Day!

Where do I begin? My mind is in turmoil as I sit here and type! My mother has far less time left then we first thought – far less, we were told this morning. When I arrived on the ward, my mother said a doctor had said she would only have a few days of her life left, if she refused treatment which she had done before I arrived. What the staff don't realise is, that my mother would rather die than stay on a boiling hot ward, dripping with persperation and with only warm water to drink! Since being diagnosed with cancer she will only drink icy cold water.

My mother has 'Spontaneus Bacterial Peritinitus' according to a doctor this morning, which is a reaction to the Ascitic drain last Thursday. I have not said before, but my mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in September 2016 and could only be 'managed' as mother had kept quiet about her illness for approximately eight years, not going to a doctor or telling anyone. The cancer quickly spread to her bones and recently to her stomach.

I am so angry with a doctor on the ward, that I can't even write what I really want to say. The 'discussion' today was to carry on with the intravenous antibiotics for 5+ days and risk mother dying in hospital when she could be at home or go home today..... the 'cultures' from the biopsy come back (from Norwich) tomorrow lunchtime (ish) which if 'negative' means its not an infection and is simply the cancer, so nothing else can be done and mother can return home for her remaining days. If 'positive' a 5+ day course of intravenous antibiotics can be carried out, but this would be 'at least 5 days' and this could buy some time or maybe not.

The way she is being treated on the ward by 'some' of the nurses this evening was enough for me to take her home there and then. If you don't care about people then DO NOT be a nurse! When I returned to visit her this evening, she told me that she had felt too weak to walk across to the bathroom to use the toilet, but they made her and said 'you can do it' and 'there is no such thing as can't'. I spoke to one of the nurses as I left to request that she is step-round transfer and not to walk her across to the toilet and the response was 'she walked across ok', so I bluntly pointed out that she has days to live and is normally fiercely independent and not lazy. My cynical mind guesses that it might have had something to do with not having to clean a commode maybe!!!!! Wicked, truly wicked. I'm actually hoping now, that my mother will decide to come home tomorrow, where she will be cared for by her three daughters in the most loving and caring way possible.

I have had to do some serious DIY this week! In order to fit the hospital bed into the now transformed dining room, I had to remove the mantel piece over the boarded up fireplace, plaster all the holes up and then disguise my bad workmanship with a pretty throw which I have duck-taped to the wall! I have spent several hours this afternoon arranging all the equipment and making up the new hospital bed whilst Vivien and Lucy sat with mother. I have washed all the walls and tried to make the room as pretty as possible. There is enough space to assist mother either side of the bed, but you have to side-step to get round the end as the foot end of the bed is only about 14 inches from the wall and window! One last job tomorrow is to move the new bird table in front of the window and hope that the birds feed from it for mother to enjoy when sitting in bed. I need to pray hard that she makes it home – I can't not deal with her dying in hospital.

A wonderful lady from Tapping House (Norfolk Hospice) who has been of huge support to us all, is very kindly making an urgent visit to my mother in the morning to discuss and advise her of her options – she is the only person I trust medically right now.