Wednesday 21st March

I'll take some of that humour please cos mine is a bit thin on the ground this evening.

Dad is not good today (weak and sleeping a lot) and I feel quite down tonight.
My mum is "ok". Quote marks because it's tough to see her go through this, too.

I will try to check in again soon, I am sorry to be so absent but I do lurk occasionally but to be honest I am finding it hard to concentrate on things as there is always something happening here. Barely 10 minutes goes by without an interruption or something that needs to be done.

I'm not complaining about that, by the way, just letting you know.The docs wanted to take my dad back into hospital today as his INR levels are up (he takes warfarin) way above normal. I asked if it was absolutely essential, as Dad is exhausted after doing anything and was only telling me last night that he doesn't want to leave home again now. Anyhow, Doc agreed that there was nothing they would actually be doing in hospital and that Dad wasn't well enough to be moved. Thankfully he is staying here. I didn't tell him that they wanted to take him in, as he's settled today and sleeping lots and I don't want him anxious.

Gosh I am sorry for that miserable post - I was just having a moment there! I do know that you understand, and I know you've all been there in some guise at some point.... so thank you

And there was some good news today - I got my redundancy pay from my old Company (my last day is 26th March). I was more than pleasantly surprised.... I got even more than I had calculated. So it buys me time. I have decided to take a career break to help care for dad. With the money I got (and of course Roy is still earning) then we will cope financially and I am hoping not to dip into my payout, as ideally we want to put it off our mortgage. Sorry - forgot to tell you that bit!

I had just got upset cos my dad is now refusing to see visitors other than close family... he wants people to remember him as he was, and vice versa... it just got to me a bit. I don't know if this is just a bad spell and if he'll pick up again, but I suspect he thinks that he's going downhill now. Oops, I'm on a gloomy track again myself, so I will say goodnight and check in again soon.

Comment added in May:

This was the day that Dad asked me to phone George (one of his pals from back in his Brunswick Boy's Club days) to tell him not to visit. George fully understood, and I did say to him that if things changed, I'd let him know. Not a nice phone call to have to make, but Dad insisted I do it straight away and checked that I had.

After Dad came out of hospital, he was struggling to take the Furosemide tablets he'd been given - they were different, not as smooth as the ones he had been used to, and made him balk and want to vomit. So after much telephone tennis with his GP's office, we established that we could get a liquid version of the Furosemide. Dad was delighted with this and we then spent a day running around trying to get the prescription filled at a chemist. Finally got it late on in the day. At this point, Dad hadn't had his Furosemide for the day, so we gave him the liquid. At this time, his legs and feet were very swollen still (making it really tricky when he stood as he couldn't balance at all - apparently it's like trying to balance on two sponges).
Soooo... fast forward one week, and Dad's feet and legs are lovely and thin again - not an ounce of fluid on them. I also happened to check the Furosemide bottle to make sure the dosage was right. Whoops - I'd only been double-dosing Dad for SIX days!! On the one hand, it seemed to have done the job - no swollen feet! On the other hand I was concerned what other damage I might have done. Lorraine had a Doc's appointment so I asked her to mention it to Dr Rathbone and see what she said. I wrote down the full details of my misdemeanour! I was so relieved when she came back and said not to worry about it... just to halve the dose immediately! We told Dad his dosage had been cut due to his legs not swelling now. I made Lol and mum swear NEVER to tell him the truth...................