At about 5.00am on Saturday morning I phoned the Medical Emergency and Assessment Unit, the Ward that dad had been admitted to, to check on his progress.  To my complete dismay they told me he'd been transferred to another ward, Carlton Colby, the previous evening at 10.00pm, just an hour after I'd left for the night.  They were worried about dad's breathing and so had moved him to a ward specialising in respiratory problems.  I was angered and unsettled about what seemed to me a very sudden change of plan late at night of which they'd been no indication just an hour earlier. I phoned the new ward and spoke to Sandra, one of the nurses, who didn't seem to be seeing my dad as a dying man in the way that the clinicians on the MEAU I thought had.  She was resistant to my visiting outside normal hours of 2.00pm to 9.00pm whereas on the MEAU they had given me a free hand to come and go at any time of the day or night.  I felt intensely upset and angry, but tried no...

Its 2.30am and I'm sitting up in Dad's bed back at his little bungalow.  I've just spoken to Sue about what's been going down here.  I got to the ward at about 9.00am yesterday and saw Dad in bed with an oxygen mask fighting for breath.  He can't sleep but he drifts between consciousness and semi-consciousness.  I spoke to the Consultant who said when he was admitted his lungs were full of pneumonia.  They're giving him intravenous antibiotics and now a saline drip as he is currently "nil by mouth" due to concerns that he will inhale food and liquid and choke.  He's lucid but very difficult to understand and also drifts between tacit acceptance of his lot and hope for a recovery.  To me, looking on, it's like he's having to work like a marathon runner just to stay alive. We've said our "I love you's" and he is touchingly grateful for my being there.  At one point I thought his last words were going to be "you know h...

Just over half way on MH0004 from KL to London.  Two clocks running in my head; 7pm Malaysian time and; 11am UK time.  The window blinds are all down and the cabin is dark.  My knee is throbbing and I’ve got a developing toothache.  Feeling sad and anxious about what I might find when I finally get to Lincoln.  I tried to speak to Dad on the ‘phone from hospital last night (Malaysian time) and could barely hear a word through the wheezing of his chest. “Pneumonia” the Staff Nurse says, which they’re watching very carefully.  I thank her and follow my gut and buy a ticket on this morning’s flight.  As soon as the word ‘”pneumomnia” is out I remember that a friend who is a nurse once told me that it is known to clinicians as “the old man’s comforter” – a way to quietly slip off if one has a mind.  Dad has already made it clear that he wants to be treated as a “DNR” (do not rescuscitate) case, but I have no idea if this is in his mind. I was lo...

Stupidly I decided to go to an exercise class with a bunch of Chinese teenagers at a local gym a week ago.  The inevitable result of trying to compete with them in the depth of my squats is a knackered knee, which I'm now limping along on with the help of ice, ibuprofen and an elastic bandage. I'm so used to taking regular exercise that I'm like a drug addict deprived of their fix, pacing Sue's apartment restlessly and willing my knee to get better.  Still I've had enough good sense to cancel an impending trip to Mulu National Park and rest up. Then, this morning I got an email from Dad's friend Bernie.  Dad's been taken to hospital, but he doesn't think it's anything to worry about.  I live my life waiting for a message like this.  It probably is nothing, but because of the eight-hour time difference I must wait until this afternoon before putting in the inevitable calls to Bernie, the homecare company that looks after Dad and the hospital.  T...