I can imagine how down it will have made you feel last night. In a way it is the very last thing you can do for your mum. The hospital needs to learn from their mistakes so that no other family has to watch a loved one suffer.
I would love to travel but do not have the money and I couldn’t leave my cat and tortoise! I went to New York with my sister in 2013. I had never been on a plane before as I never fancied it. My sister got me one day and reminded be about the shops, I booked before I changed my mind! I shouldn’t have gone long haul for my first time, I felt rough the whole time we were there.
I have lots of fond memories of growing up in Devon but some bad ones too. Torbay where I lived went down hill in the mid nineties so we moved to North Cornwall. Do you think you will ever move from Manchester?
I was at work at 5 today so I am about to get my beauty sleep. I’m waiting for my days off already but I am going to have to spend it pruning trees. The neighbour at the back isn’t nice (long story), she was asking through the fence today when we were going to cut the trees back as they are over hanging into her garden. Mum wanted to get a tree surgeon in before we knew the cancer was back. All the wheels fell off after that. Life just keeps on throwing things at us. Time to bulk buy Cadbury’s again…………
I would love to either move to North Yorkshire where my husband grew up (though his family are all from Scotland originally) or to the Midland counties such as Worcestershire or Shropshire. However it’s all expensive and my son’s job is here and he needs us around really. You just never really know in life quite how things will move on I guess.
We had another look at the grimness of photos last night which made me feel very sad. I think I’ll have to take it very slowly and the notes will take ages. I can’t do it all at once, it’s too depressing. Rain here again today, no summer planned for us I guess, though yesterday was nice.
I’m so sorry you had to experience issues with your mum’s care as well. It seems like so many of here have been through that, it’s awful. I sent in a complaint for my dad, who was nonchalantly treated at the hospital, and got just that kind of reply. It gave me a lot of anxiety to have it hanging over me and I had to let it go after filing a second complaint (questioning things they hadn’t replied to the first time). It hasn’t eased the memories of that time or my guilt, but I try to see it as at least I have told them what I think and let them know how angry I am.
Thanks @Ulma. I can see from the notes they have sent me that although they have detailed when they have brought food and drink for my mum, they completely failed to note that she wasn’t eating or drinking it! Or that she was mostly unconscious towards the end. They also said she was not in pain when she had acquired bad bedsores in hospital and only received mild painkillers. We know all this because we went every day, often twice. There’s not much I can prove and I will also not want to keep on pressing these points, but I want them (and the CQC) to know we have seen what happened and that eventually all these complaints be heard and conditions improved for those in hospital. Especially for the old, weak or disabled and often deaf patients who can’t say much for themselves. I feel I should have realised but I didn’t. Just want to apologise to my mum. I kept her safe for so long and did what I could. Hope you are ok. I know you did what you could too.
It is scary how bad care has become in hospitals. I was talking to a lady in work today who has put in a complaint to our local hospital. She went into earlier in the year for a hernia repair. It wasn’t until she came around that they told her she was having major surgery. She showed me the massive wound she had up the centre of her abdomen. The wound got severely infected as they never changed the dressing. It came away but they stuck plaster strip over the top and sent her home the same day. She ended up back in hospital with blood clots on her lungs because they hadn’t given her blood thinners before the op. There were a lot of other errors too. She told me that the hospital has emailed her to say they are experiencing a high level of complaints so it will take longer than usual to respond. You are both incredibly brave to take on the hospitals. If you don’t get anywhere, maybe contact your local MPs? Only if you feel up to it though x
Feeling low again today and didnt look at the photos or notes yesterday. Think it will take a good long time. It is terrible how many cases of bad treatment there are in hospitals. Very upsetting.
That’s not something you can look at everyday. I wish there was something I could do to help you feel less low. I find that kitty cuddles help a lot, as long as I don’t give Loki a 1/4 stroke too much, then I get severely reprimanded. He’s got a nasty nip and an even worse left hook. The joys of cat ownership…….
Thank you, feeling a little better this evening. I don’t like the mornings, waking up and thinking about it every day. Cleo the cat is with us watching the TV this evening. She’s quite keen on a cuddle. I also can’t stop thinking about the poor man who has lost his wife and two daughters in the crossbow attack today. That is truly awful. Life can be so random and cruel.
I find it’s worse when I go to bed as that is the one time I am on my own to think. I am glad you felt a bit better last night. Cats are so in tune with our feelings and stick around us when they are needed. Loki always and mum and dad and then mum for company when I was at work. When mum was in hospital and now he is on his own most of the day, four days a week. As soon as we get home he is very cuddly.
With being at work all day I have not seen the news. I have just gone and looked now. I can’t believe someone could be so cruel. They must have been so scared. It’s so hard to grapple with the grief of losing one loved one without dealing with the loss of your whole family.
I feel the same way about wanting to apologise. It’s so very difficult, because we would like to trust the health professionals and realising we can’t is a sort of shock. As well as realising just how bad older people are treated, like they don’t matter at all. I, like I’m sure you, would have done anything to protect him from harm and I couldn’t, that’s the worst.
Take your time with the notes, it will be heartbreaking, but try to recognise too, when it gets to be too much and you have to say stop. We can keep going endlessly and get nowhere and that will just tear us apart. All we can do is our best and say our piece.
Thank you both @Ulma and @Malcolm2. Its good to have people who understand how up and down this all is. I think when I go to work people assume I’m completely all right because I look cheerful, but I suppose we all assume things about other people. Our cat has been in all today as we were all out at work. She was very glad to get out when we returned, and not too pleased at having been shut in. It’s my daughter’s birthday today, but she’s away with her boyfriend right now so we had a cake for her earlier in the week. Hope you are both well and feeling ok.
I tend to vamp up my humour when I feel down, it’s how I cope. Although there are not a lot of opportunities in work these days to have a laugh. I think the real problem you are having in work is not that you look cheery but, once people have done the whole “I’m so sorry for your loss” thing they go on with their day to day business. As they are not going through it they just expect you to get on with things as normal. Unless they have gone through grief themselves they will not understand that it never goes away.
I have had Loki since he was 5 weeks old. My parents used to do a local market to raise funds for mum’s guinea pig rescue. A man on a neighbouring stall didn’t believe in his cat being neutered. She was constantly having litters and he would never feed her. Loki was the last of one litter and he told mum he couldn’t find a home for him so was going to let him go in a field. We took him on and found out he had various health problems due to the lack of nutrition and genetics. Due to this I was advised to keep him as a house cat. He loves it when my sister and I are home.
I think that’s very true. When people ask how I am, I feel upset with myself for saying ‘ok’ because I feel it doesn’t reflect how important my mum was to me. Yet you can’t keep telling people you’re not ok because they get tired of it. Its all so complicated.
Loki is a great name for a cat. We had ours from Blue Cross pet rescue. We also used to have guinea pigs but they never really lived as long as they should and I felt they weren’t really happy as such. They are sweet but so timid. A guinea pig rescue is lovely.
We’ve been back at work 4 weeks now. No one asks is if we are ok anymore, not that many people did. The store gossip told my sister last week that she was with her dad when he passed and then went home to see to her family, said you just have to get on with it. She also asked if we were selling the house, my sister told her no as there are lots of things in the house that our parents made. She stopped speaking to us after that, people can be so money orientated. Why would we sell our home?
Loki lives up to his namesake: the maker of mischief and mayhem! He can be a moody little so and so too but we love him. Scientists have discovered that cats who are raised by their human servants from a very young age pick up their mannerisms! So I think Loki gets his strops from mum (sorry mum!). Rescuing guinea pigs was hard work, especially when they were ill. At one time mum had 25, dad turned a shed outside the kitchen door into a home from home, it was plastered, wall papered, had a big window in it and air conditioning! It’s still there now without the hutches. Mum loved it out there and caring for them. After she was diagnosed with cancer in 2019 she stopped taking any in. She lost her last one in 2021 just before we lost dad. We still have is ashes, when mum knew she was dying she asked that they be scattered with hers and dads.
I’m off to a second hand charity bookshop today, there is just something about books that have already been read, they have a life. Hope everyone is doing ok x
Hope you managed to find a good book. Books feature a lot in my life, both personally and for work. I think books and music can really keep you going.
It sounds hard work with the guinea pigs but what a kind thing to do. I actually think cats are pretty easy to look after, as long as you do what they want of course! It’s the time of evening tight now when our cat decides it is time for her evening biscuits and jumps on and off us ever more frantically until we take the hint. She gets quite cross at my stupidity not to know it’s biscuit time! There will be ructions if I don’t go and serve her!
Work has been busy this week so I’ve been trying to catch up on my tennis watching without finding out the results!
Hoping to catch up with some sleep too!
We have a library of books in the spare room but you can never have too many! It’s nice to have a range so that I can go and see what takes my fancy. Since mum went into hospital at the start of April I have lost touch with reading. I was on the go all day so when it got to bedtime I was too tired. Now with the time I start work and the length of shifts I do I am also too tired. I need to get back into though as reading is a chance to escape my life and enter the one in the story.
Loki likes his treats too, when we get up in the morning he walks to the treat cupboard and sits there until we give in. Mum always said when we were at work he would constantly jump up on her until she got him treats. If she didn’t he would nip her. I often wonder since losing mum if he knows she has gone and if he does how it is affecting him.
My sisters’s boyfriend has come over to help cut the trees at the back to stop the awful woman complaining about them hanging over her fence. She harassed my parents years back about feeding the birds to the point environmental health kept coming out. In Scotland there is no legal obligation for a tree owner to prune it on a neighbours request. I just want to try to be amicable before I have to go to the mattresses! I already have dealt with more than enough lately I don’t think I have it in me. I hope you have a good weekend x
Thanks, hope your weekend is going well too. I went to a food festival with a couple of friends. It was quite cold and damp but one of the Bake Off contestants was there giving a talk on making a chocolate cake. That was quite fun. The food on sale was just the usual pizzas and burgers though which was a bit of a shame. I was then a bit greedy and had some churros which saw me off!
We have had some bookshelves built in one room. It’s nice to be able to see the books properly, as you say, and pick one to read. I sometimes get sent aome proofs from publishers too (usually books for young people, of which I am not one!) which are good to read, as part of my job. I’m keen on all sorts of books though, from biographies to history.
Hope Loki has been good. Whilst I was out my husband found a dead mouse outside. We suspect the paw of the cat!
I do love a chocolate cake! It’s a shame that the festival was just pizza and burgers, was there not even a cheese stall?! I do love unusual cheeses but not blue cheese, my mum loved it but just the smell put me off. It sounds like you’ve had a good day though which is just what you need. Your job sounds so interesting, tell me more! I’m 44 but would be more than happy to read children’s books. I’m partial to the Jolly Postman especially the Christmas one! Joking aside reading children’s books right now would remind me of when I was young and life wasn’t so hard.
We got the trees done, some of the branches went into the neighbours garden. My sister’s boyfriend volunteered to go round and knock on their door which I was glad of. Loki wasn’t happy to be left indoors alone, he sat on the kitchen window sill and meowed in disgust. We had a mouse in the house years ago and Loki just sat and watched it walk across the landing.
Back to work tomorrow which my sister and I are not looking forward to. I can only hope that the store catches fire or gets hit by a meteor whilst I slumber. A girl can only dream…………night night everyone x
I’m presuming the store was still intact when you went in, and not destroyed in a terrible but suspicious accident! Hope it’s not too bad today.
Glad the garden jobs got done though, that’s one thing off the list. It’s nice of your sister’s boyfriend to do that.
You’re right, not even a cheese stall at the food festival. There were stalls purporting to be food from around the world but all of them were either mostly fried meats etc or sweet stalls. I don’t have anything against either of those but it would have been good to have some different and healthier choices. The foodie bit was really about various talks going on in the marquees (ok they were more glorified gazebos), or people trying to sell their sauces. Still it was a day out. I enjoyed Dan from Bake Off, he had some good anecdotes as he baked.
Today will be back to some tennis watching hopefully, along with house jobs.
When I first started work I was a children’s librarian. I have more of a management role now which is better money-wise but less fun in terms of the actual work. I’m still involved in the work we do around literacy for children and young people, so it’s a nice job really.
I brought quite a few books back from my mum’s when she first moved in with us. They really do transport you back to a safer and happier time and I love to get absorbed in them. It’s why I also still like listening to 80s and 90s music!
Hope Loki gives you a nice welcome home. It would be useful if cats could have tea on the table ready, but in my experience that never happens!
Sadly yes, the store was still standing when I pulled up at 10am, I would have been happy with a small fire but alas it wasn’t meant to be .
NO CHEESE!!! What sort of establishment was it to not have one of life’s staples? I’m glad though that you enjoyed it and there was at least some sweet stalls, I would have hit them first!
I hope you have not overdone it with the house jobs, small steps and all that. We were worn out after doing the trees yesterday. I had tiny bits of twig tangled in my hair and I am ashamed to say I didn’t notice until later on, in my knickers too!!! .
Your job sounds wonderful, I would be sat reading books to children all day if I could. Over the years I have bought toys I had in the 80’s. Sylvanian families and My Little Pony are my favourites. I look at them and I really don’t care that I am too old for them. There are lots of people on Instagram in the same position as me so I am not worried about my sanity yet!
I would love it if Loki has a cup of tea waiting for us when we got home. He can open door so maybe I can teach him how to use the kettle!
I’m so sorry you had to experience issues with your mum’s care as well. It seems like so many of here have been through that, it’s awful. I sent in a complaint for my dad, who was nonchalantly treated at the hospital, and got just that kind of reply. It gave me a lot of anxiety to have it hanging over me and I had to let it go after filing a second complaint (questioning things they hadn’t replied to the first time). It hasn’t eased the memories of that time or my guilt, but I try to see it as at least I have told them what I think and let them know how angry I am.
I’m presuming the store was still intact when you went in, and not destroyed in a terrible but suspicious accident! Hope it’s not too bad today.
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