Another LONG day

Poor mum she is exhausted but not as exhausted as having dad home - and there's no way he could possibly come home he really cannot move well and needs assistance in and out of bed, he cannot stand and is SO weak it is not nice to see him like this.


He was a bit better today and there was a little bit better colour in his cheeks and face generally and he was a little livelier although not for long.  He certainly has been through the mill and he just can't do anything for himself and after 30 or 40 minutes with us, he has to close his eyes and sleep.  He's just had one thing after another and he's tired and bless him, just fed up with this ongoing stuff.


Trying to rationalise it with him is difficult because you can't talk logic and sense slowly and deliberately when half way through his attention is taken by something else or he just falls asleep.  That's the problem, he wants to know about something but half way through the explanation he is distracted.


My brother needs to "man up" and stop being an arse to my mum or he will get the rough end of my tongue - he's in complete denial and over reacts massively. Anyway, he may get a "bit of a slap" if he continues to lay down the law to my mum as he does at the moment - he's full of medical knowledge but - of course - he's no doctor!  Just because he works at a Hospital doesn't make him an expert on Pancreatic Cancer or Diabetes.   He will be getting the benefit of my wisdom soon if he continues to upset my mum!

Long, long days

It sure is a long day.  We leave here at 1, park around 1:30 and then wander via the coffee shop up to the ward.  That is open in this ward from 2:30 and in the previous one at 2:00 !!  We then stay until around 5, go out for 2 hours and have something to eat and generally sit around and go back between 7:00 and 8:00.  It is easier to stay there than to do the 1 hour round trip here and back.


Dad is generally up and down, they don't know whether he will be fit to return home or not and his blood sugar levels are all over the place.  This means he can be good and bad all within the space of a half hour.  He sleeps a lot which is good (in a way) but the hospital is so noisy and he is often woken up for a test or to check temperature etc.

Another Day in Paradise

I'm absolutely knackered - doing nothing just sitting around all day is tiring as hell.  Dad was good when we arrived - a bit confused but otherwise OK and taking a bit more interest.  A little later when we went back to see him he was very irritable and tired.  His blood sugars were all over the place which wasn't good.  So they gave him some Insulin and he just slept for the last hour.  


They are going to move him, when a bed becomes available, to a local convalescent (and palliative) care hospital, so we just have to wait for that bed.  Local will be good as the journey and the time we are at the Hospital is quite long.

Not what I expected

It's one of those very strange moments where everyone has warned you how someone looks and you fear the worst but in effect, it isn't as bad in some-ways as you thought but in others it is.  My dad looked like my dad, he was thin and he is looking very old now but it was still my dad.  He is though getting quite annoyed.  Annoyed at no one knowing what is wrong with him and just being helpless.  He's not really been helpless and at the moment it is distressing to see how much nursing assistance he needs.  He has some moments of fun but you're never quite sure if he is being sarcastic, ironic or annoyed and showing it.


He has been moved to a ward that should be able to deal with him a bit better than the previous one.  The problem is that we can't actually find out what is going on as the professionals come around in the morning and speak to dad and by the time we have arrived he has forgotten what was said or has confused it with what they were saying to the chap in the bed next door to him.


Back again in a few hours - these are long days as dad goes in and out of sleep and he talks quietly in a noisy place and so gets angry when you don't understand what he is saying.  

What on earth am I going to find?

Well I will see tomorrow as I'm off to visit my dad.  Will get away nice and early to miss the rush hour traffic and get breakfast with mum and give her someone to talk to for a while.  I doubt she has had the opportunity to get it off her chest.


Sister-in-law called to give me a heads-up on how dad looks which is pretty grim from what I can understand.  He's pretty grumpy and pretty fed up which also doesn't surprise me so I hope that he is a little more with it tomorrow and I have to remember to hear him out as apparently he does take a while to say what he means and goes off on tangents.


They are still trying to sort him out in terms of blood sugar levels as well as clearing up slight infections.  We don't know what the Hospital wants to suggest about coming home although, from what I hear, that is unlikely as he can barely stand up at the moment and can only do one or two steps and refused physio earlier today.  


I have volunteered to go up for three days but have packed for 5 which I can just about achieve as I need to be back for Sunday as we have a Sunday Lunch booked at a rather nice Hotel and I have to do a presentation.  Next year it will be my family Sunday lunch as President.  Mind you if I have to cancel so be it.  Some things may be more important of course.


Difficult to know much more until I get there really.

First Day

That I have not been working on the business for 2 years - strange feeling and of course a little sad but would you believe as one door closes another opens - or three in fact so far.  People that I know want to chat to about new ventures they are involved in and another is a possible insight into funding through the EU although given their problems at the moment that could be fraught with difficulty.  Mind you there does appear to be some interesting projects being dealt out from there.


I'm just preparing the way for going to my parents place tomorrow and getting packed and stuff ready - computer and phone chargers and stuff like that are all needed! 

No appetite

Strange - I forced some scrambled egg down this morning and some mackerel and spinach at lunchtime.  I really don't feel too much like eating and I have to say I'm getting that dread feeling and slightly tight chest I get when I'm likely to have to do something stressful and let's face it, going to see your dad when he is about 5 stone lighter than you remember him, wired up in a hospital bed plus the associated sadness that the family will be feeling is going to be, at the very least, a little stressful.


I'm getting ready to go tomorrow and probably spend 2 or 3 days and prepare for 4 or 5 if needed.  It will give some respite for my brother and hopefully some support for my mum and dad.  We will see what will await me as I've done this trip a few times now.  I've got loads of change sorted out so that we can feed the parking meters at the Hospital and let the fat cats grow rick on the parking fees of the sick.  I never really got that but understand that one of the reasons that they had to put fees on were that locals were parking their cars there for free and using public transport from there....  This is the society we probably deserve when this is acceptable behaviour and also for the use of what appear to be fines for everything to check it.  It's unfortunately blindingly obvious that it is all about the money.  The politicians and fat cats are too remote to get it and wonder why they are despised by the majority....


Anyway - my little rant as it costs a fortune to park there to see dad and who can afford the sorts of sums they ask is beyond me and long term illness must cost people a fortune - so much for a "free" NHS.  

Eating

Strange that I wasn't really feeling like eating and even at lunch time I forced down some tuna and Spinach.  I think that the diet will be a bit shot this week as I go up and see my dad.  I'll probably stay with my mum which will save me some hard cash.  


Mum seems to have started to realise that Dad will probably not come home now and I think that she is able to say these things to me but not to my brother who would be a little upset by that sort of talk.   Dad's not great, still eating and drinking and getting good care but has a number of small ailments that aren't helping him be comfortable but each is being checked and acted on.  Tomorrow he has a big assessment day, it appears that they have stabilised how rough he was feeling with pain killers and they have managed to get him to walk a few steps but, in all honesty, the three or four steps completely exhausted him.  I think he is a bit more lucid and I believe that he is at least able to have proper 24x7 care that mum just cannot achieve.


I'm going to go see him this week after I've spoken to mum after this assessment I will go up for two or three days and see what I can do.  At least I can do some of the driving around in place of my brother and sister-in-law.  I guess that I might also be able to allow him to "tick the box" if he is waiting to see me.  My daughters are in their examination week and final project weeks at University and I'm very much hoping that nothing disturbs their week so that they can get their work done.  


I am preparing myself for the worst and whilst I know my brother wanted me up last week, at least this week I can managed more than a cursory visit.  We will just have to see how it goes.

Eating

Have to say that after a cheat day or any day off diet I find it particularly difficult to eat the next morning.  Today I just don't feel like it at all.  In fact I feel a little sick.  I will go and eat a little at lunchtime but definitely cannot stomach food at all and yet tomorrow all will be fine again.  I really should eat within 1 hour of rising but I'm not going to force myself to do that.


Dad remains stable in Hospital and they will assess him tomorrow.  I will talk to my mum then and then decide on going up to see her/him.

Strange Result

The diet is totally messed up this week and I thought I'd weigh myself this morning and to my great surprise found that I'm still the same as last week so hopefully not too much damage done with 4 days of eating out.  Well it will be 4 by the end of today.  


I have very little appetite in the mornings - not too sure what that is about but seem to be OK when on plan?  Anyway, there should be little stopping me getting back on plan next week.  I am working out what to do based on what my Mum tells me later today and tomorrow in terms of going up to see my Dad.

Purveyor of DOOM and Bad News

Why is it that I feel that the optimism of my Mother and Brother and Sister In Law is misplaced?  


Well, it's like this.  Dad cannot stand unaided, he can't get up and go to the toilet or look after himself because his brain signals and his ability to physically respond to them are in different time zones.  He's not able to maintain normal functions and everyone thinks he is going to come home after a "bit of physio" and - sorry to say - no he isn't.  I hate being the arsehole in this time but someone surely has to be the hard nosed git that sees it as it is?  Dad's not going to get better he is unable to maintain basic functions and sad - and believe me IT IS sad - he's on a path that no one can halt and no one can help other than those who are specialists in Palliative Care.  


I fear going up there as I will be the catalyst that kicks off the process of end of life.  Sounds worrying sounds a bit far fetched - or is it?  Oldest Son, perhaps no one can let what is about to happen without my attendance and say so?  Perhaps it needs me to be there to start the process?  I don't know really and I guess it is my job - my destiny?  Do I need to be there to - grant permission for my father to die?  I really hope not.  I hope that no one waits for me or that I have anything to do to delay this.  My brother wanted me to go up earlier this week and I've held back for this and for other reasons.  No one has actually stated what is wrong with my dad or any other thing about it either.  There's the problem, no one knows, if I HAD gone up earlier this week I'd still be in the situation I'm in now.


I really hope that dad isn't waiting for me to "give permission" to go ahead with this next stage in his "life".  Hell that would be a bad thing on my conscience.


At least I'm free of work and can just spend whatever time is needed doing whatever is needed in the next days or weeks.  This is the problem with remote family.  If they had been local - like they used to be - it would be no problem to cover all the rota and to assist and even the girls who both drive could have helped but since everyone buggered off over 120 miles away - we find it difficult to get there even by train (which is an hour or more longer than by car).  


I beat myself up constantly but I've not moved house since 1988!  I think that my parents have moved 4 or 5 times in that time and 2 of those have been in a far distant place.  I don't mind, it is their choice entirely and it isn't my decision but I feel so guilty (yes I know I shouldn't).  The trouble is that I wouldn't have chosen to live where they did or where my brother lives - 5 minutes from my parents.  


I have no idea why I feel so bad now - it wasn't my decision and it wasn't part of my plan and it was their decision and theirs alone - yet somehow - peer pressure gives me the responsibility. I will step up to the mark on Sunday because, everything that I need to do here is cleared and I can go do what I need to do without affecting my own circumstances.  Damn it sounds callous writing this but I suppose as "Responsible Adult" or "Head of House" it is my responsibility on my watch to sort this out.  I will do so and I'm ready to do that and to broker what ever is needed in the coming days, weeks and I suppose months.  


I really don't want my dad to die but that's what is going to happen.  I hate seeing him the way he is now because it isn't my dad I see, it is this frightened man who has meant a lot to me being eaten away by this pernicious disease.  Of course, it hurts like hell as I survived and he isn't going to and the problems are compounded by that knowledge and that experience.  It really is difficult as I will need to "be strong" for the family and thereby be the "hard man" the face to those who will turn up to the funeral and so on.  I'm preparing myself for this role and whilst I hate it I know that I'll get good support from my family and from my friends.  I said some time ago that all my close friends had lost their fathers and how lucky I was to have my father around.  They will be a great support to me in what lies ahead.


I do have enough faith left to believe that there is a soul and that the spirit leaves the body and all we see after death is a shell and NOT the real person.  As my friend told me when his father died, he saw him and said "that's not my father, it looks like him, but it wasn't the body that was him, it was everything about him."


Well, in a way that's the way it is, my dad is the entirety of the experience and not the shell in which it is captured.  No doubt I'll be expanding on this in the next weeks.  I just hope that I can live up to his standards and that he will think well of me and we will part on good terms.  There is no reason that we cannot do that at all but let's hope that we spend the right sort of time together at the end and that we part on the level.

Last Day in the Job

Well after two years of graft and many highs and lows (more highs than lows) today is the last day I'm doing anything officially for Doddle and we will close down operations until times may allow us to dust off the idea and move it on a bit further.  Trying to raise capital in the worst economic downturn since the Second World War and some say the great Depression of the 30s is like trying to push water uphill - it just isn't going to happen and with such a big idea and its scale and ambition and therefore some inherent risks, we aren't going to get anywhere against the tide especially as the markets wont bear it currently,


The door will be left open and there are some alternatives that we will explore but for now, a rest and a period of reflection are needed.  Of course it is a shame and of course it is disappointing but neither of us are that upset about it because we kept it real throughout realising that this may well be the outcome of our efforts.


The good things are that we have learnt an awful lot about business across all disciplines and added to our existing portfolio of skills.  Both of us talk a different sort of language now and we've had and held our own in discussions with some of the top lawyers and investors in the world and they've been very receptive and most complimentary about our approach, preparedness and the idea itself.  From these people has also come the necessary reassurance that we had done everything possible to realise our ambitions.


So, no regrets about 2 years apart from, I suppose, not getting any revenue or money out of it of course :-)  Money isn't everything but with a wife and two children at University it was a challenge.  The challenge now isn't to jump from here into anything that I will regret doing.  I'm now preparing myself for whatever will happen with Dad, my forthcoming Installation as Master of my Lodge and then to take a break, try and do nothing on this damn computer and perhaps potter around the house and do some maintenance and I might, if I feel like it, tackle the bathroom or at least do as much of the preparation work ready for the plumbers to come and do the final bits.  There's work in the garden to do and the outside of the house has taken a battering with all the wind and rain and the ice damage to the render so they can be fixed too.


I have started a complex series of mindmaps that are helping me to sort out my priorities and needs and wants and to filter jobs and career choices etc.  I find it really useful to organise my thoughts in this way and to then analyse these things.  I need the break to allow these ideas, needs and wants to settle themselves down a bit and to take shape.  I really like the idea of using my history and research skills and my analysis work to take up some sort of genealogical and records based research work but again, will it pay the bills and can I make it work and pay?  I'm sure that I probably can but I need to go and take the "reality pills" and that is what the break is there to do.  I was really interested in running an old fashioned tea room in the country as a life style choice but once again it sounds lovely but is it?  This would require selling up here, buying somewhere and making a real go of it but other things suffer too when that is done.  What if you get there and hate it - then what do you do?


So that's where we are today, I think that we did an amazing job in the past 2 years building the business and getting to where we are, we were pretty thorough and knew where we were all along by keeping it real.  I was annoyed that only half of the team made it to the end, two dropping out very early on which doubled the time it took for us to get here - we should have been finished in a year but the resources messed us up.   It would be interesting if I could work out how to re-brand myself with all that experience, bottle it up, market it and sell it, it has to be valuable to anyone starting up but you would have had to have taken the journey thus far to have realised it :-)

Diet Shot so Suspended

Only for the remainder of the week as I was out Wednesday and then yesterday got my business partner drop in and we went out for lunch and I pretty much decided that I'd have a few beers and it was nice to go talk about things in general and spend a few hours chatting about my dad, business, life and absurdity in general.  


Once again this morning I just don't really feel like eating at all and I've noticed this whenever I go off diet for a day that they next day I just don't want to eat anything at all and even at lunchtime I will force some food down.  I just don't feel hungry at the moment and so I think the best thing to do especially as I am out tonight and tomorrow (even though that is official cheat day) is to suspend the diet although I tend to continue to eat the foods in the diet though but in reality it's broken for the remainder of this week.


Dad continues to be tested and they got him into a chair and said he is very weak and cannot stand on his own - "NO SHIT SHERLOCK!" what are these people on we know that, it's what we told you and part of the reason he is there.  Sometimes you despair when they replay to you exactly what you told them when he was admitted.  There's no way my mum can lift him and look after him and there will be an interesting set of conversations later today about whether he will be able to come home because the house isn't set up for a "disabled" regime, the doors and the small corridor are difficult to negotiation with a wheel chair.  So we will see what they will do.  Dad's blood sugars are all over the place which means the Pancreas is in a pretty bad way now and they are using insulin injections to try and balance him out.


I've said I will come up next week but mum's not sure when he will get out of hospital.  I fear to suggest that it will be highly unlikely that it will be any time soon unless there is some way of getting home assistance for him and even then is highly unlikely they will let him home as he is now.  Who knows what will actually happen.  Hopefully there will be some sort of beginning today of some course of action plan that will allow everyone to start to get to understand what the future may hold.  I have my own ideas about it and it really is a matter of whether he can be stabilised and be in a situation to return home.  In reality, you don't tend to get fitter when you have this sort of cancer and the additional problems he has with diabetes and next to no strength.  

Well mum sounds a lot better

Finally mum got a good nights sleep even though it was 6 hours with a short interruption and the caring and professional staff at the hospital have made her a little more relaxed about dad being there.  It's the right thing to do, he can't really support himself and she's put her back out trying to lift him around.  Today they will check dad's brain with a scan, mum doesn't want the cancer to have spread there but perhaps it has but not sure if that is actually what is wrong but we will wait and see.


The main thing is that he is in a hospital with 24x7 support from professionals who can administer pain killers and help him as best as possible.  I have no doubt that they will get to the bottom of what is wrong but I doubt that anyone actually wants to hear what it is.  There's some very useful information on the Macmillan pages about end of life and what to expect and I'm sure that we are entering that phase and that none of us are going to like what we hear later today and perhaps tomorrow.  Not eating and sleeping a lot are some indicators but of course, now he is finally off the steroid drugs (what were they thinking) it may be that but let's wait and see.


The main thing is that mum is at home and busy catching up on loads of things she has been wanting to do and dad is in good hands and in the right place.  We will see later on what it means to us all especially him.

Ewww Too Much Information

Not sure I needed to know about Dad's "movements" however, now I know, have looked it up and it isn't at all good news.  At the end of the day, who am I kidding?  It's really bad news and he's on the cusp of moving into the next phase and there's nothing any of us can do to change it.  I just want to clear the decks here and I'll go up there and get myself in place for whatever comes next.


I have to admit to being a tiny bit emotional tonight but then I have had a drink (or two) and actually managed to have a good evening I think at least I had a few beers and an Indian meal - sure I broke my diet but there wasn't much chance of not doing that.  I'm annoyed but realised that I was going for a bit of a burn out.  I actually need to vent some fury at what my dad is going through.  The issue of it all being that I see him suffering and realise how it could well be me, it's agony for him and it's like sticking hot needles into me, all I see is him suffering when he shouldn't have that after all he did for us, it's unjust and not warranted, it hurts all who love him and everyone around him.  How cruel nature (or is it God) is to do this to people.


I listened to a talk the other day about how we aren't really meant to live beyond about 35 years old and this is why we have Cancers and other problems like Dementia and Alzheimer's.  We aren't programmed to live this long - period.  So we live longer and catch nasty things like Cancer, are more susceptible to Diabetes and so on.  I do hate the way that it is gradually killing my dad and didn't just be as certain as a heart attack or something that would have been short and over and done with.  To toy with someone with a great mind is too cruel for words.   Does a just God do that to their people?  I wonder.  I need to go have the time to myself to go and work that out I think.  I find it a difficult scenario where what happens to people could possibly be considered the act of someone compassionate and caring.  If you see the anguish it brings not only to the sufferer but also to those around them it isn't compassionate or caring at all, it's downright nasty.    


So I will leave you with this that I am listening to right now.  One of my fav bands, Camel and from the concept Album Dust and Dream (about the Great American Depression and the Dust Bowl Drought).  It's a really interesting piece of music.  In fact, see if you can pick up the whole album at some time especially "Go West" which is another fab piece of music.




Somehow I am drawn to this at these troubled times, I know not why.....

Yuk Bollocks etc

Bloody phone packed up half way through the night - only charged it in the morning - what the hell is going on?  So worried that I had no news from home and arrived back and set on to power up and no message, no email, in fact nothing except from my Uncle.  In fact a message just arrived.  Dad is having a brain scan tomorrow (well later today).  Interesting times.  Not sure what is going on at the moment but, dare I say, in my eyes we are entering the home straight now and I just need to get myself prepared for this as I will need all my strength and resolve to hold the rest of the family together.  


I know that my brother will be in pieces as he is very close to my dad living 5 minutes from them for years and years.  Mum will be exhausted and we will just have to make the most of it.  I can be an arse like this and whilst people hate me for it, someone has to do the "hard man" through the tough bit.  I imagine later I'll be in bits but that can wait really, wait until I get to be on my own.

Hospital it is then

At least there is one thing about going to hospital, dad will be able to have 24x7 care and let's hope they can relieve the pain he has.  Now quite disorientated and confused the doctor wants to know if it is the Cancer, the whack on the head or the strained muscles that are doing this.  Probably a combination of the 3 I'm guessing.


So I now need to hear what that will all mean to mum and the family.  Hopefully mum will get a bit of rest and be able to be less on edge.  Looking after someone who you've lived and loved for 56 years must take a hell of a strain.  I feel pretty helpless but what can I do other than a bit of support.  I have today started to feel a bit upset about things - I have no idea how it will take me at all, the nearer we get the worse I feel.  It's not that I don't care BTW it is just the way I'm made.


Anyway, I will go out and meet some friends tonight as planned and see what they have to say, hopefully they will cheer me up or allow me to cheer them up which will mysteriously cheer me up too.  

Who is right?

Crack of Sparrows call from my brother.  Difficult to know what to make of it other than he wants me up there.  If I had been already then what?  As I asked him, "What exactly were you thinking I might do?"  That's the problem as I said to him if I'd already been up there and done the supportive bit etc. then what?  It's chicken and egg of the worst possible kind.


Then there's the other bit of once I'm up there is it just a day there and back or is it two or three days at a time?  It is just difficult to tell and next week is easier to move things around than this week and some would say you should go forget it  but just what is the right thing to do?  


I shall try and get some sort of answer out of my mum when I speak to her.  In a way, after that, I will at least be able to put some sense to it.  Again, it isn't a lot of use me just sitting up there getting in the way either.  What to do? What to do?


I guess it will play out one way or another.

Trying to work out what to do next

It is interesting as today I saw a few jobs and thought, they look good but a little later retreated from them as I thought a bit more about them.  Here's the problem and it will always be a problem for me.  I really enjoy the sorts of things I've been doing for the last 10 years or so and I've learnt so much in the past few years that I can now talk with some authority about business, finance, customer and competitive research, business planning, risks, issues and contingencies and a whole host of other things.  That experience is a marketable commodity in my eyes and I'm not sure whether I should set my sights lower unless it is for a job in the Third Sector which I would certainly consider would be lower rewarded in terms of money but would be a higher reward in terms of philanthropic pursuits.


I think that after this week is over and done with I will take a short breather, enough time to just work out what to do and to clear my office of the last 2 years of paperwork and just archive all of that.  I can then file away the business stuff and clear the decks getting myself organised properly to start to think clearly.


Horrible as it sounds, I somehow need to understand dad's situation and to come to terms with that and to work out my reaction to it for at the moment I feel something but I don't feel what I thought I should.  In fact it is a lot like having Cancer as what you think you should feel like is very different to how you do feel.  Strange but true.  I have a number of things I must sit down and sort out including some accounts and odds and ends of paperwork.  I'm going to go and see the local history society in a few weeks too as they meet on a Friday and go have a chat with then and see what gives there.  


I'm considering what to do with the family history business and also some of the more interesting ideas I've got and when someone I know comes back from holiday I will go and see him and work on some business ideas that I had that he seems interested in.  I wonder if my future lies in providing that level of advice and consulting in short bursts to business people who wouldn't necessarily have my sort of expertise?  Who knows.

What does that mean?

Doctor been and sorted out some of the symptoms dad is having, giving heavier pain killers but bloods and blood pressure seem to be normalising and he is eating again.  However, the problem is that it is like all these things, we don't know actually what it is that is doing this, the fall, the cancer or the steroids which he shouldn't have had that he is almost finally weaned off.


I'm just on standby and as soon as I hear anything then I will need to spring into action.