My Nan is in hospital.

Posted: December 16, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Matters that Matter | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

My Nan is in hospital, and is due to remain for a few more days, following a week of already having been stuck there.

She is 96, she has dementia, bronchitis, a UTI, and I’d imagine depression too considering all those combined after a week in hospital.

This year has been her greatest deterioration. This was the year she didn’t recognise me right away. And was the year she asked me if I’d seen her mother around. I hadn’t – she died before my mother was born.

She wants her mother, which is quite the thing to want at 96 years old.

I think, not just from the emotional low of wanting ‘mum’ to make everything better, but there’s also a simple, sensible logic to it.

“I’m confused and don’t know where I am – I’d better find where mother is. That’ll solve everything, as usual.” That’s a problem solving habit we grow out of, but I suppose we also cling to.

I’ve a feeling this is commonly noted by those visiting old and poorly relatives in hospital; they look so small.

She is curled up in her bed, blankets over and around her, with side-shelves full of debris from visitors and staff. Uneaten meals under heat-covers, unopened magazines of gossip and brain-teasers, sweets and fruit drinks.

I added to that some photos of my son, from his school’s photo shoot.

He looks ridiculous, but I suppose that’s in his DNA.

It made her smile and laugh, and I could see it also made her think and try to remember. She recognised him, but I think she may also have liked just seeing a cheerful little boy smiling under a mop of previously combed hair.

She was concerned about where her shoes were, so I kept pointing to them and throwing them in the air every now and then to liven up the place. She liked that too, but also asked that I put them back carefully, where she could see them.

“When I die, all my children are going to get a little bit of money.” she keeps saying, again and again, loudly. I kept having to match her volume by saying “not yet Nan, you just stay with us instead of going”, so others didn’t think I was trying to coax it out of her with a power of attorney one hand and a pen in the other.

I brought her some strawberry bon-bons, and she had one. I think it was the thrill of the day.

My mother is worried about there not being a proper care plan for her. Nan asked me, “who am I going to live with” and at first I didn’t know how to answer because I don’t know her care plan, and then I realised she’d actually forgotten that she currently lives alone, next door to my parents. She didn’t know where she lived, and was asking me.

It’s no less sad to tell you this because of who my Nan was, as that shouldn’t matter.

But I’ll tell about that sometime soon.

She should be home soon, before Christmas.

It’s seems pointless to tell you I love my Nan very much, that would be assumed by most and is true. But she loved me beyond care of danger and damage. She’d take on a bull at full charge for me.

Just a grandmother loving their grandchild I suppose.

But it’s important to remember, I feel anyway, that this is how things are, were, and will be. It’s important to remember because it’s important.

Nan was completely on my side. And now I sit at hers.

I’ll tell you about her sometime. Her name is Betty, something she was first called when she was a little girl, held by her mother and father.

Now she’s 96. But she’s still Betty.

Sam

How To Tell If You’re Vomiting.

Posted: January 20, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mainly, and most gratefully, there is that feeling of serenity that comes with the end of your internal expulsion.

Of course, this serenity is only some kind of a return to normality, as the beads of sweat wind their way down your brow, stinging your eyes, further down to and between your lips, now introducing a salty taste to the one that lingered- the flavour of the digested.

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling descriptive today. How descriptive am I feeling? I don’t know- the feeling’s passed.

I have a habit of vomiting when I am unwell. People say that about me- “Must be unwell, I can hear him vomiting again. I hope he’s aiming it at something I don’t treasure much”.

That’s not all they say about me. I have many styles aside from throwing up, but it is the manner in which I do it that is memorable to those nearby. At least within earshot.

You see, it’s the same thing as my night-murmuring.

Lying on my back as I sleep in my bed each night (which I hear is fairly common) the breathing that I partake in makes mischief with those nearby. Again- at least within earshot.

As the breath makes its way from the lung out through the mouth, it trembles my vocal chords, causing me then to murmur.

“Eeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”.

Sometimes…“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”.

I apparently have very little interesting to say when I’m sleeping, or perhaps I’m simply dreaming about really hard sums and am letting people know by such inglorious vocals.

Either way, a quick jab into no particular part of me (aside from my coccyx…please spare my coccyx) generally causes me enough discomfort to either delay that pesky breathing for a while longer, or to adjust so that I breath at an alternative angle.

So as in the night- I murmur, throughout an illness I…sing…up.

On its way up and out, my vocal chords have a tendency to yelp in a muffled, ‘vomity’-way. Things really don’t tend to happen in a ‘vomity’ way unless vomit is directly involved. Let’s make the most of the term whilst we’re on the topic.

‘Vomity’ I am during this spell of sickness, and my singing voice is distinctly out of key, and distinctly out of place as I bend my body over the porcelain and dedicate this next number to all the pretty girls in the house.

They don’t appreciate the dedication.

One of my favourites is ‘Devil in Disguise’. The soft parts of: ‘She looks like an angel, walks like an angel’ are perfect for the warped blubbering that follows each rendition. Also, ‘Time to Say Goodbye’, as it is quite emotionally fitting and by the end I really am keen to leave.

This was how I spent my past week- filling receptacles up with substances that once looked so delicious and now I wish I’d never met. Dizzy without the fun bit and aching without the fun bit.

This left me time to contemplate samsywoodsy.com (you might have heard of it).

What direction was I to take my writing in next? What was I writing this for? What ultimate ambition did I have, if any?

I thought about this for about two weeks and then it hit me- SPAM.

I truly believe that there is little difference between SPAM and our good old friend- billboard advertising. The only real difference is the difficulty I’ve had in drawing hilarious moustaches on SPAM, being tricky as it is to do very much with the contents of an email account other than the most radical option of ‘forwarding’. ‘Forwarding’ is also difficult to do with a 13 by 26 foot poster.

The essential similarity of the two is that they share the strategy of completely random ramming of product information into the information/literal highway in the hope that ‘people-might-look’.

Therefore, you will find me (in the format of samsywoodsy.com), throughout the comments of all Facebook and Twitter pages that you might happen to encounter.

My comment will be: ‘Even I Don’t Know If I’m SPAM’, which will then link to an article from the site. This comment denotes my innocence on the matter.

My ambition is now evident- I want you all to look at me. You could probably tell by the way in which I sing as I vomit.

Aside from ‘Waiting For Ambition’ (https://samsywoodsy.com/2013/02/20/waiting-for-ambition/), as I lay upon my sofa, essentially just leaking, I also felt the need to go outside for the air that is fresh.

Walking down (or up- I have no idea) the high-street I realised that I was out of the house at the same time as those people. The ones that walk slowly and constantly look surprised by the smell.

It made me glad that I go somewhere to work for a living, because I don’t think I’d be able to mingle like this every weekday. I saw two men having a conversation purely through pointing. I think they were arguing.

If you ever encounter these people- it’s probably because you’re vomiting and you should hurry home to sing some more songs. I’m trying to make Johnny Cash’s ‘Jackson’ work, but it doesn’t seem to suit the format. Cash never suited ‘vomity’- he preferred to wear black.

For next time, I hope to write about a totem-pole that I am carving. You’ll find out by reading your Facebook timeline.

I’m making a totem pole. Conditions are perfect. If you don’t have these conditions…get them. Then make a totem pole.

Sam.