Excellent Care From All Teams Involved

Mother had to have a District Nurse out in the middle of the night to administer medication to relieve pain and anxiety etc. The Night sitter, a Marie Curie nurse was absolutely lovely and did an excellent job of looking after mother last night – she left at 7am this morning. We are on another level today – mother hardly drinking and finding it difficult to suck water through a straw at times. She had no food at all until about 6pm, when she had about seven spoons of ice-cream which I hadn't expected. She is very restless and gets irritated if you try to touch or hold her hand and is cold and clammy.

I really can't fault the services we have had so far – everyone who has come out to assist, both Norfolk Hospice who come out in the morning and Virtual Ward in the evenings, along with District Nurses and Senior staff from Tapping House have been incredibly supportive and are hugely compassionate people, who have worked above and beyond to care for both mother and my sisters and I. A lady from Tapping House along with a District Nurse visited us this afternoon and chatted to Lucy by herself, mother and then Vivien and I together to talk us through everything and how we were coping – they are very professional and give us lots of reassurance and advice, which is helping us all very much indeed.

Our old family friend Malcolm phoned me this morning and had a lovely supportive chat with me which was very kind of him. Sophie (HBO Warden) turned up this afternoon when she going to the NOA office and hugged me for ages which was very sweet of her, I was sobbing uncontrollably. I am a mess and not holding it together very well at all for my sisters and I – well sometimes I am. Lucy had a bit of a wobble last night (long story) so I asked Vivien to take her away from the house today and suggested Titchwell RSPB for cake and coffee, which they did in the morning and also had a walk around the village late afternoon – I think this helped them both, well I hope so anyway. Vivien's partner Ray has also been helping with supplies of cakes and goodies for us and was the only one to get Mother to have a good amount of water at lunchtime today, whilst he was keeping an eye on her, whilst we chatted with the Tapping House lady. I don't want to risk leaving the house at all and certainly don't want to let my sisters face the end without me to support them. We have no night sitter tonight, but I think we will be fine, fingers crossed.

Poor Lucy had a mental breakdown late this evening (won't go into details) which meant it turned into an incredibly stressful night and none of us had any sleep whatsoever.