U.K. Duty Visit - Day 6

What a difference a day makes! We awoke this morning to a significant snowfall, enough to effectively paralyze Eastbourne & surrounding areas, especially the hilly streets, which provided quite a bit of amusement as non-snow-savvy drivers in 2-wheel drive cars tried & failed to reach the top of the street outside the flat. Were we ever lucky! Part of our concern yesterday, as flurries came & went, was the proviso in Mum-Mum’s schedule of “if it doesn’t snow”! Had the original schedule been held the operation would not have happened as the surgeon quite literally was unable to get to the hospital today! Luckily we only had a flurry or two more during the day, plus some brightness & it was well above freezing so the roads became more & more passable as the day wore on.

I (John) took two hits today. The progress of the cold Nick gave me made for a miserable & relatively sleepless night, and although not totally debilitating we all agreed it was wise to stay inside & not go shopping and especially not go to see Mum-Mum in a hospital environment. Otherwise it is more irritating than anything else. The second blow came when reading the Republic Newspaper online & seeing a front page headline that the only card that still works over here will be “killed” on February 20th, making me totally dependent on the family for any expenses I might incur during the last week. No doubt in amongst the 3-weeksworth of mail I will retrieve from the Post office on my return will be a replacement under the new bank’s name & no doubt some new PIN that I will have to get changed. But I do feel strangely vulnerable, even though via the family we can get around the issue.

When Pam called the hospital to see how Mum-Mum was we learned that to their dismay, even though a catheter was in place she felt a need to pee, forgot she was in hospital, got out of bed & subsequently crashed to the floor, dislocating her newly installed joint, while her surgeon was snowbound somewhere out of town! Luckily it occurred right around a shift change & with extra staff around she was restored to bed, given a strong sedative (rather than more anesthesia) & another doctor was able to manipulate her joint back into place without any other damage! Much later in the day the primary surgeon called Pam to fill her in. Mum-Mum did not have arthritic degeneration, as supposed (although the speed of her decline amazed everybody) but something called vascular necrosis, which means that the blood had been cut off from that area of her hip bone & the bone was literally crumbling away. This dictated a change to the original plan, but the “fix” was successful. They also think she still has (or has yet again) a urinary tract infection the irritation of which caused her desire to go to the bathroom. With lots of hindsight a number of changes have been made to ensure she stays in bed when she is supposed to do so, plus the surgeon will fit an external brace on her leg to ensure that no twisting occurs for several weeks & it has regained some strength.

The telephone has been busy. I called Michelle to update her/Marissa (who was no doubt still in bed at an hour later on Central Time). Right after Pam & Nick went out to do some shopping & move the car (Nick’s “strategic spot” proved to be too close to the icy corner & the car was nearly hit) and, as it happened, the roads in town were improving so they went and paid a quick visit to Mum-Mum, who appeared to be more worried about my cold than about her own condition! Katy called me for an update. Pat called me and we had a chat & arranged to meet next week. Pam later called her back to give Pat their mobile number & explain why she won’t be here when Pat & Ange visit. In fact, for one reason or another the telephone has been well used, incoming & outgoing, all day.

Once Pam & Nick were back, and all done with the outside world until the evening, when Pam went back out to have the dinner cancelled yesterday, we had lunch and settled in. We continued with the massive sort out of pictures (still largely duplicates we had sent, but also some seriously old ones) and the “to be scanned” pile grows bigger. We are definitely making progress, unless we find another cache in the other bookcase. So we decided finally to just rest and relax until tomorrow.