Home - other concerns.

Mutterings continued.

Things are not going well with Mum. She left hospital a couple of weeks ago for a nursing home in Armadale. Dad and I went to see her on Friday morning and she was unconscious. She was taken by Ambulance to Armadale Kelmscott Hospital where she is currently in palliative care.

She has pneumonia and the cancer has advanced in both lungs. This morning she recognised me however I'm not sure in what context - she recognised my brother yesterday but told him off for something he did as a kid.

She's not on life support and they are treating her as an acute patient, which means they haven't given up on treating her - she's getting antibiotics for the pneumonia as well as other therapies.

I spent Friday night at Dad's as my brother was worried about the stress of the day on him - good thing I did as he had another pulmonary embolism, his fourth this month. I got a call about 1.30am from the EC doctor to advise that he wasn't responding to treatment and I should go in. I rang my brother and we sat with Dad for about 3 hours while he did finally to respond to treatment.

I went to visit them both yesterday and could hear his voice from down the corridor. He's exhausted but on the mend. A couple of the doctors during his last stay in hospital told him he wouldn't survive the next attack and tried to get him to sign a form to say that he doesn't want to be revived - NFR. He refused. At the time Dad was in a ward with three other men who all suffered from the same thing and who were asked to sign the NFR form. They also refused and took to calling the doctors 'The Undertakers" and one asked the doctor where his tape measure was.

I visited this morning and Mum was a little more alert, had eaten some breakfast with assistance and sort of knew me. Dad is sleeping in her room in a fancy recliner rocker he wants to take home.

None of us can say enough about the professionalism, dedication and sheer wonderfulness of the staff in Emergency and Palliative care.