Nine Feet Underground

I've not been up to writing here for quite a few days now.  There have been false starts, but I've scrapped all of them.  This blog is meant to be a place where I can write the unvarnished truth, but it's been very difficult for a while, both because COVID has made me so tired, but mostly because E has been very unwell in hospital and seems slow to respond to her treatment.  After a week she remains on a very high volume of oxygen and also antibiotics.   I have visited E quite a few times and, based on what the doctors have said, I have made sure I've told her the things she needs to know and that I need to have said.  Last night I told her that if it's all getting too much for her and if there is too much pain to bear, she should let go, she has achieved so much in the short time she's had, so far. The doctors are working with the hospital palliative care team to assess the extent to which the treatment is causing her to suffer and I guess there may b...

Another cold day in what looks like being a cold week. This time we seemed to have escaped the snow, so the roads are not bad locally, though it's still pretty damn cold. A long day of work ahead, to be punctured by carer visits and one of the district nurses coming to change my wife's catheter. A nurse arrives mid-morning whilst I'm on a call with the team in India. I don't recognise her and she's not been here before, so I have to show her where the supplies are and so on.  I carry on on my call and before it has ended she's left the house. When I check my wife's catheter, there's a lot of blood, much more than usual. The nurse is still outside sat in her car, so I go outside to ask if all has gone OK.  She said there was a problem emptying the water from the balloon before removal, so that removal was a bit more difficult than normal.  She suggests my wife should have extra water so that it flushes through, so I agree that with her. I'm a little d...