Dad

Dad’s been in hospital a week now. There is nothing medically wrong with him as such, but he can’t move much without lots of pain and so hasn’t been out of bed since being admitted. Still he’s eating more and seems much more perky – probably because there is so much going on in the hospital it’s distracting him from his loneliness.  It was good to seem him less depressed and a bit happier.

Of course dad’s health isn’t the only thing we have to concentrate on. His waste bins had not been taken and a bag had been opened by a fox, leaving rubbish everywhere, the post needs picking up and responding to, emails forwarded, papers stopped and many other small tasks. I can’t do a lot of these by myself because of access issues so Karen helped out.

Yet if I am totally honest dad’s hospitalisation has been a relief as I have had a reprieve from long daily conversations with him that go over the same ground each day (missing mum, lonely etc.) without ever coming to a resolution or point at which he moves forward (eg, lunch clubs, hobbies).

Dad said that he’s stepping back from the idea of a care home now and wants to come home with extra care. I explained that rather than focus on this now let agree a plan of action based on agreed criteria and we did this with the doctors and physio. So the plan is this.

1. get dad’s pain under control and once that happens
2. begin to gat dad as mobile as possible

At the point where he is as mobile as possible we can then have a discussion about what he wants and what is realistic. One step at a time….

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