2) Stuff about Mum

What a waste of a morning…

Sunday 18th December 2016 was one of those truly brilliant days where everything is so perfect you just can’t count enough blessings.

We live on a small road just outside Norwich and although all the neighbours are very different in terms of age, politics, general outlook etc, each Christmas someone takes a turn to put on a ‘do’. These dos are usually boozy affairs full of wine and buffet bits that begin on a Sunday at noon (too early!) and end about 3 hours later. None of us have anywhere to drive and it’s become a very friendly tradition.

This particular Sunday was going to be different for all good reasons. Our dear friend, Giancarlo from Italy and his Austrian girlfriend Caroline were eager to try a real Christmas dinner with turkey and all the trimmings and this was the only date that fitted everyone. How perfect though — warm, sociable drinks with Mum and the neighbours for an hour then a full-on Christmas dinner with our friends, our daughter Rosie and my brother joining us. No work on Monday so we all mucked in and sozzled our way through the day. We ate too much, opened presents between us, chatted till far too late, dozed a little in the lounge, it was just like a proper Christmas.

At 5am on Monday morning the phone rang. It was Dean, staying in the annex next door with Mum. She’d fallen out of bed and couldn’t get up — could we come in and help.

Tutting and slightly hungover Pete and I went through and were confronted by the sight of Mum lying on her side on the bedroom floor, apologising for having to disturb us, half giggling as she said she only wanted to go to the loo and totally unable to move her left arm and leg. They weren’t broken — it was pretty obvious she’d had a stroke.

Ok, we all thought. Keep calm, call for an ambulance, she’s chatting and quite happy — just make sure no-one says “stroke” out loud. The ambulance arrived within minutes and by 7am Mum had been assessed in A&E and had various scans and tests. She was actually laughing with the nurses about what a complete waste of a morning this was; she could have read so much of her book she’d been eager to finish; could she just have another cup of tea… Dean, Pete and I must have looked like fish out of water. Basically we had no idea what to do, how to behave, what to ask, where to sit — nothing. Lost.

Then a junior doctor came in. She looked at Mum and said, all matter of fact “it’s much worse than we thought Pat. You’ve had a stroke but it’s a very large bleed on your brain and…” She didn’t get anything else out because Mum started crying — loudly. Very loudly. This is point one of what’s wrong with how doctors engage with patients. Yes, Mum seemed fine (despite the stroke) but this news was the worst thing anyone could say to her. Mum’s sister had died only months earlier from a massive bleed on the brain. Mum and I had been with her and my uncle until the end in this same A&E department. It was horrific. And now this doctor had just blurted this out to a vulnerable woman in unfamiliar surroundings. Then the doctor said “please don’t cry Pat, try to calm down — it will only make things worse!”

This was the beginning.

Post from 18th April 2019