Tuesday 2nd 1115
I was a bit slow following Daddy into the kitchen when he got up and found him trying to make toast but having difficulty working out how to light the grill. I took over.
He spent most of the afternoon asleep in his chair.
Wednesday 3rd 0015
I heard Daddy talking while he was getting ready for bed. Couldn't make out what he was saying so I went in. He insisted that there had been two people in the room but they had now vanished. I must have admitted someone to the house without his knowledge. The only thing to do was to sit on a chair on the landing till he fell off. I persuaded him that this was not necessary and he got into bed. Throughout the discussion, he was very clear about events and not at all convinced that he had been imagining anything.
He got up just after 9, I made his breakfast and by the time I had tidied the kitchen, he was asleep, tea and toast barely touched. He spent a lot of time asleep.
2205
I found him sitting on the end of his bed in the dark groping for something on the floor. "What have you lost?" "I'm just picking up these bits of cable, they're all over the place. Grass cable." As far as I could see, he was trying to pick up the uneven patches of pile on the carpet. I said I would take the cleaner over the floor in the morning and he went down for supper.
When I went to bed at 2300, I assured him there were no other people in the house and the doors were locked. I heard nothing untoward when he went to bed but...
Thursday 4th 0415
... He came into my room. "John?" I grunted. "Oh, there you are, I was looking for you over there" pointing I think towards the computer where I might have been sitting had it been daylight. I switched on the bedside light. "How do we get out? The door is locked and the man with the key has vanished." There ensued a conversation about where we were and why we had to go "back" somewhere. After about 10 minutes, I persuaded him he was at home and should go back to bed. He was not convinced but did it just to humour me. He had mentioned "being packed" and I found three pairs of clean socks half under his pillow.
He got up just before 10, seemed a bit slow getting dressed and I found him trying to fasten his trouser belt, which was not attached to his trousers which is probably why they wouldn't stay up.
After breakfast, he fell asleep. I woke him up and said I thought I should call the doctor. "Because I keep falling asleep?" "Yes." He didn't think it necessary but I could if I wanted. I phoned about 1130 and Dr Walker arrived before 12.
I showed her the Friday and Monday crosswords to demonstrate the suddenness of the problem and I think she was impressed. She asked him questions, he was quite affable and she said he should go to the Royal for some tests. Her diagnosis (to me) was that his confusion was probably a reaction to some medical event and should be reversed when the underlying cause was treated.
So, to the Royal by taxi. Arrived about 1340, and Daddy was in Ward 43 by 1600. It didn't seem to have taken that long as various things had happened in succession, no one wait was longer than about 15 minutes and most were less than 10.
While Daddy was being settled into the ward, I was grilled by a nurse for the personal details then allowed in to see him. I was about to leave just before tea time when the consultant came round and I waited outside for a word. He seemed to be of the same opinion as the other doctors that once the cause had been identified and treated, the confusion should ebb.
On the way home, I dropped in on Karen and explained the situation. She phoned Fiona and they decided to go up in the evening so I walked home and explained the situation to Mrs Campbell. Not good news on her birthday.
Friday 5th 1930-2015
Karen picked me up after her yoga class in Tollcross and we went up. Daddy has been moved to Ward 19 (elderly assessment unit) and was not looking good at all. Perhaps I should have phoned the doctor on Wednesday and not left it another day. Karen was quite upset but I think managed to cheer him up a bit.
Saturday 6th
Much better.
Sunday 7th
Monday 8th
Tuesday 9th 1845-1930
He recognised me when I arrived but I don't think he knew I was visiting him in hospital. "How did you get here? I was hustled away from our usual meeting place three times but I suppose they recognised you and told you." When I asked by whom he had been hustled, he looked blank so I changed the subject. I asked about laundry and he thought I could wash his pyjamas so I put them in the bag and dug out the other pair Fiona bought. There is another pair of pyjama trousers in the locker but where is the jacket?
He had difficulty understanding that I wanted to take his jumper to wash it (chocolate marks) but I got there in the end. He drank most of the tea but seemed to be dozing off so I decided to leave.
The wooden stick he went in with has become metal with "DO NOT REMOVE" on it.
Wednesday 10th
Thursday 11th
Friday 12th 1920-2000
Not good. When I arrived (with Karen), he was standing in the corridor trying to catch an imaginary thread dangling from his hand. Karen persuaded him into the room where he took tea and half the sandwich but kept talking about a dog. When I asked him the whereabouts of his glasses, he looked blank so I asked the staff if they had seen them. An orderly said that he had had them in his pyjama jacket pocket earlier and that's where they were! He continued trying to catch the imaginary thread and pick up other things.
Saturday 13th 1900-1945
Much brighter. Possibly the best I've seen him since he went in. No sign of the problem with his left hand that Moira had noticed this afternoon. He drank most of the tea, ate most of the sandwich and didn't lose the thread of the conversation at all. However, when I went in, he said that he had had a busy afternoon with all sorts of test which he doubted would produce any solution. Ignoring the probability that few tests would be carried out on a Saturday, I tried to persuade him that although each test may seem trivial, they were all part of a plan which would produce a result. I'm not sure that I convinced him.
Sunday 14th
Monday - no visit
Tuesday 16th 1500-1610
Wednesday 17th 1445-1615
He was sleeping on top of his bed, fully dressed when I walked in. I woke him, he was a bit slow to realise where he was and what was going on. We talked for a while, he confided that he detested using the ward toilet, the floor was sodden underneath and any drips caused a puddle. Then he said "oops". I summoned the staff and when the curtains cleared he was dressed and sitting in the chair. We went along for a smoke, on the way back I pointed out the visitor toilet and said he could use it but I don't think it registered.
Thursday 18th 1440-1610
Friday 19th 1840-2000
Wot? No Daddy? I asked and was told he had gone along to the day room, and there I found him, looking slightly puzzled as if he had forgotten what he had gone there for. I suggested he sit and he did so. I fetched his pipe and he lit up (with assistance, he tends to wave the match some distance above the tobacco). He seems to know that he has to go home and make a cup of tea (for the people coming from the Shotts) and then come back to the hospital but he's not sure when. Probably the day after tomorrow. I didn't make a meal of it.
I asked if he had any visitors this afternoon and he said Fiona had come in and "made the thing work". I presume he meant his hearing aid but the process seemed to have been very complicated involving three lights with multi-position switches and extra bodies to hold things in place.
He drank some tea while smoking and tried to devise methods of keeping control of the pipe but accepted that it had to be returned to the nurses. He was a bit unsteady on the way back to the ward, had difficulty sitting down. As I was leaving I noticed that his left arm was flopping and told a nurse on the way out.
Saturday 20th 0830
Fiona phoned to summarise her recent conversations with Dr Burns. She is a bit concerned that there has not been the expected improvement, in fact he may be deteriorating. He can get a bit agitated at night, becoming obsessive about something or other and reluctant to go to bed; they have had to give him a mild sedative on a couple of occasions. They need another scan, probably towards the end of next week. He will be seen by a geriatric psychiatrist next week.
1440-1600
Daddy was sitting in his chair, fully dressed and quite alert with half a cup of tea in front of him. Conversation meandered a bit, through Stranraer (I don't know why he thought he would be transferred there) and the basement (where he had gone to deliver some literature, and when he asked for directions back to room 6, was told he already was there, and so he was). He had finished the tea during this conversation and accepted when I offered another from the flask, which he accepted. I got his pipe from the nursing station and we repaired to the day room for a smoke. I enquired whether his hearing aid was still working, it was but not so well as yesterday (after Fiona's ministrations) and he fiddled with it for 10 minutes. When he finally decided that it was as good as it was going to get, I had a look, it was set for the "loop", so I switched it on and that was much better.
On the way back to the ward, I pointed out the visitor toilet and said that he could use that if he didn't want to use the ward toilet and he decided too use it there and then. (While I was waiting outside, another patient came along the corridor, looked into the Room 6 toilet, then came along to use the visitor toilet and used the Room 5 toilet instead. back in the ward, some more tea and a sandwich before I gave him the paper and left.
Sunday 21st
Fiona & Paul went up in the afternoon and he was fine.
1850-2000
He wasn't in his room and I was about to go along to the day room when a nurse called me back. Daddy was sitting at the nurses station with his jacket on, regaling them with stories of the Shotts and asking when whatever was going to happen would happen. When I said tomorrow, he looked disappointed. He had been to Rutherglen and no-one had seemed pleased to see him so he just came back. I asked for his pipe and it was not in the drawer. A nurse had taken him along for a smoke about 5 (or 3), she was now off-shift and hopefully didn't have it in her pocket. However, the on-shift nurse went for a look and appeared with the bag from the day room.
So we went along to the room and sat down, I opened the bag and found that there was no pipe. The tobacco had been moved from the packet to the pouch and the pipe (which I had left in the pouch) was nowhere to be seen. However I had a spare of everything in my pocket so proceedings commenced and he took a cup of tea.
A desultory conversation ensued, he was concerned that if they took him home to Shotts, he wouldn't know where anything was. I reassured him that they would be going to Tollcross and he said he wouldn't know where anything was there either. I asked if he wanted another cup of tea but he said the water would be well off the boil by now so no.
He looked at his watch and said "It's twenty-five to eight, I suppose we'd better go back and join the others." I agreed, transferred the tobacco back from the pouch to the packet, put the pipe in the pouch, and we made a leisurely progress back to the ward.
I swapped a pair of pyjamas, face cloths, socks and suggested he put on the clean jumper if he was cold tomorrow. When I said I was going, he said "And what do I do? Just sit here?" I said yes and left.
Monday 22nd
The occupational therapists turned up with Daddy just after 2pm. Apparently, he had not recognised his surroundings before he came in. However, he knew where he was in the house. When asked to make tea and toast, he displayed what they called "precursive behaviour" (or recursive or procursive or etc), ie doing one thing then another then repeating the first thing then the other etc. However, when prompted he was able to break out of the loop and in the end he managed to consume his tea and toast despite having lost his left arm while making it.
They asked him to go upstairs and sit on the toilet, get up and go back down stairs. This he managed but had to be told to take his time going down - he couldn't hold on to the bannister.
The end result was that he shouldn't use the cooker (an isolation valve should be fitted), a battery operated device would be needed to get in and out of the bath, a handrail beside the toilet and a bannister on the other side of the stair. Apart from that, he could probably manage at home if his mental state allowed.
He went quietly when it was time to return to the hospital.
Tuesday 23rd
Wednesday 24th
Thursday 25th
Friday 26th
A man phoned to check that there was someone in and then turned up to fit a handrail beside the toilet.
1900-1950
Not an auspicious start. Daddy was in bed (wearing a shirt and pyjama trousers) and had no sooner started emerging when I was thrown out as another patient required the toilet. Due to a misunderstanding, I went back in too soon and we were both thrown out to the day room, with pipe and tea.
Saturday 27th 1455-1605
Possibly the best I've seen him so far, despite having displaced a lens from his glasses when he dropped them. I was unable to pop it back in and took them home to fix.
1900-2000
Went in with Paul. Still good. He was sitting with pyjamas, underpants and socks in front of him, having made his preparations for bed. I produced the glasses, he put them on and seemed quite happy.
We went along for a smoke and after a bit Pearl came in to ask if Daddy was wearing his own spectacles as her husband was wearing the wrong ones. Yes, we thought so. Then doubts began to creep in so I took them along and swapped for Daddy's reading glasses. (His distance glasses are still missing.)
Sunday 28th 1455-1615
When I went in, Daddy was asleep on top of te bed wearing shirt, pullover and trousers. I woke him and he knew where he was. He recounted a strange episode this morning when he had been approached by five clergypersons including two women and taken to Mass but it wasn't any sort of Mass he recognised. He said he would never get used to being preached to by a woman.I concluded that he had been kidnapped by the Church of Scotland and their allies. (I suspect that someone came in and asked who wanted to go to church and he said yes.)
We went along to the day room for a smoke and tea. He tried to recount a tale of using an elaborate lift but kept losing the thread so we moved on to other things.
At five past four I suggested a return to the ward and we gathered our things together and were on the way along when two ladies came the other way looking for would-be Mass attenders. Daddy was a bit confused as he had been to church in the morning but decided that he would go again. They went off to get a wheel chair, I took Daddy into his room and reeled off the list of domestic arrangements I would effect and they wheeled him off to Mass. I replenished his locker, returned the other watch to the chap in the bed diagonally opposite, and left.
evening
Paul & Moira went in, still good.
Monday 29th 1455-1550
Very good. Fiona was already there when I went in feeding him Tango and snowballs. Unfortunately, the day room was occupied so no smoking.