timeline

For the record, I arrived back in the UK with Sal on Saturday 19th Jan. Dad appeared tired and frail, but was downstairs in his armchair, watching some TV, chatting, struggling to get up and downstairs, but still succeeding.

On Wednesday 23rd Jan (my birthday, if anyone would like to send a card next year...) with a lot of effort we got Dad into a taxi, to St Helier Hospital for a cardio checkup and then back, again in a taxi. It was slow work, but nonetheless he was out of the house, walking with a stick and help from me, still able to hold a conversation.

From Thursday to Sunday Sal and I took a long weekend in Chamonix. On Monday I got to Dad's place to find him in bed and unable to get out without a lot of effort. On Tuesday he did manage to get downstairs to talk me through making a rice pudding that he didn't eat. For the remainder of the week he was in bed all day and night, struggling to even get up from bed to piss in a bucket that I had to hold in front of him. On Wednesday I helped him out of the bed to the bathroom and took the opportunity to change his bed linen.

On Friday an ambulance arrived. He was carried from the house to the hospice. I'd not even been back a fortnight.

Over the weekend he got weaker and more confused. We could still hold conversations with him, but they were becoming slow and confused as he had ever greater difficulty remaining alert and making himself understood. When he first got to St Raphael's he was joking with the nurses, pulling faces and being a bit grumpy. On Monday he spent some time in the chair next to his bed.

On Tuesday his oral morphine was replaced with a feed into his arm. He barely woke and for the brief moemnts that he did he was incoherrent. This morning, Wednesday morning, I arrived to find him asleep. His breathing is shallow and accompanied by a gurgling that I first thought was coming from his chest but is in his throat. Every so often there is a hiss from the morphine deliverer. There are a few low groans and moans that I suspect come as air passes it's way around some obstruction or other, but otherwise his breathing is regular, although his abdomen is a bit jerky. His mouth hangs open. If it were not for the noise - it sounds a bit like the last bubbling you hear from a just-boiled kettle - he'd seem relatively peaceful.

As he lays there I can see the bottom of his ribcage through his shirt; he was always a big bloke but he's a bit bony now. His skin colour is good. He has no top denture plate in his mouth - it was falling out anyway, such is the loss of weight in his face, and his top lip sort of curls over his gums. He is wearing a polo shirt and his arms are by his sides, on top of the bed covers that are pulled to just below chest level.

His room was cleaned while I was there. The sound of the vaccum cleaner did not wake him. I held his hand and spoke to - at - him but he remained asleep. Apparently some of them simply go into a deep sleep and that is it.

I've been back for 19 days. Quick huh?