Piccadilly Circus comes to Ightham

Today has been extremely busy. The head continuing care nurse came early this morning to assess what sort of care Dad needed from her team. While she was here the bed arrived and was erected. Mum and i played with it to test which button did what so we wouldn't end up folding Dad in half once he was in it... The Macmillan cancer nurse came at lunchtime and helped us walk Dad downstairs. He needed a lot of support as he is very weak and wobbly on his feet but we made it. He opted to get into the bed straight away and reports it to be very comfortable. He is clearly happy to be reunited with Sky television; he watched a combination of BBC and Sky news for 4 hours this afternoon. He even waved Mum to one side when she stood in his view at one point. Then we had a pair of continuing care nurses turn up earlier this evening to give Dad a wash and help him brush his teeth. Mum also managed to pop out to the surgery to ask the doctor to prescribe Dad's medication in liquid form, as he is now struggling to take pills. In between all of this i have dived in and out of my work email. We are all wiped out now, even the cat, not that she did much. Mum did lock her in the garage for a few hours earlier though, who knows what she got up to in there.
Tomorrow we expect Dad's brother, sister-in-law and Dad's mother aka Grandma. It is much better he is downstairs now as he can be involved in everything with everyone. Mum and i have taken a few of our lunches upstairs this weekend to eat with Dad in the bedroom, but we can't do that with three visitors.

Busted

There was a bit of night-time activity last night. Mum told me that Dad sat upright in the middle of the night waking her; he explained he was checking the carpet was ok. She later got up to go to the loo but hurried back as Dad started shouting and he said quite seriously "Be careful the ground doesn't swallow you up" Dad is clearly much less well than he was a fortnight ago. He seems happy enough during the day reading the paper or listening to the radio in bed, but is alert enough to be a bit bored upstairs and mentions coming downstairs. Currently though we are worried that if we do manage to get him dressed and downstairs safely we may not manage to get him back upstairs. Dad has been quite chatty today. When he wants to talk i make sure i let him finish saying whatever he has to say. His voice is weak so you must listen carefully and he doesn't often make sense. Sometimes i tell him i don't understand and at other times i worry he will catch me out if i try to make a sensible response to something crazy he has said. This evening he gave me a funny look at just such an occasion and when i asked him why he was giving me that look he replied with a raised eyebrow "i think you are talking in riddles" Hmmm... that's me busted!

Heroic Mum

Dad is getting a lot of attention these days. He has always been a person happy in his own company, gardening, golfing or reading the paper, so i think is a bit overwhelmed by it all. He had breakfast in bed this morning, then I trimmed his toenails (how, when your body is battling cancer, do they still grow?) and my brother and i shaved Dad while he was sitting in bed. I helped him to the shower and to get dressed. He took a very long time to eat lunch and because he is so slow to do things we are all tempted to say encouraging things. I think we must be careful not to overdo it though as he gets irritated. He snapped at Mum earlier and it broke my heart to see it made her tearful. She is doing everything for Dad these days and trying to cope with how she feels about it all at the same time. I have a few days at work each week, but she has no escape from this. Dad is not ungrateful. He knows we are all trying to help. It is the disease's affect on his brain which makes him speak his mind more than he would normally (one of his brain metastases is in the frontal lobe of his brain, the area responsible for your personality) Mum is intelligent. She knows this but is struggling to not feel emotional in the face of Dad's snappiness. A friend told me that she doesn't know how i cope with Dad's situation. I don't know how Mum does.