Driving on

After finding Dad the way he was this morning, while Mum was stocking up at the shops ahead of tomorrow's forecast snow, I called the surgery and asked Dad's doctor to call when he had the opportunity. I talked him through everything and he decided to come and visit Dad. He said Dad is tachychardic and has the beginning of bronchial pneumonia. He went back to the surgery and sent the community nurses to us to rig-up a driver to give Dad medicine, now that he can no longer swallow oral medicines. They came and set to. It is a tiny needle that is inserted just beneath the skin on his upper arm. It was the calmest he and i have ever been in the face of a needle (i inherited Dad's needle phobia) The driver has been set up to give Dad Midazolam, to prevent further seizures, and Glycopyrronium Bromide, to ease the infection in his lungs. The Midazolam sedates Dad too and his pain is managed entirely by the Fentanyl patch now which the nurses seemed confident was enough. He has been hooked up to the driver for about four hours now and is lying very still. We can hear his breathing which is quite fast and shallow still. We can also hear a little mechanised 'whirr' noise every 15 minutes or so which is the driver administering another dose. The purple tinge to Dad's knees is common in people whose bodies are starting to shut down and his hands and feet are much cooler now. Dad has been almost entirely unresponsive today. We are desperate to interpret an eyebrow twitch as an effort to communicate, but we are painfully aware that it is most likely a random twitch. Dad's eyes look cloudy now as he stares past us. My brother has come down from London tonight, so we are all here together.