It has been eight and a half weeks since my mum was taken into hospital following a severe stroke affecting both hemispheres of her brain.
My mum is doing okay and a couple of days ago we had a home assessment to see what my mum's needs will be...that went really well as the house was considered very suitable and they think mum can come home ahead of the ballpark "early July" we were previously told. In fact, it might be at the end of next week!
On the downside we're not getting a lot of support. The home physiotherapy service has already notified us there's likely to be a very long wait and, despite my mum only being able to walk very short distances with a frame and me not driving, she hasn't even been deemed in need of a wheelchair! Bloody ridiculous IMHO.
My cancer scare may yet turn out to be nothing (please keep everything crossed for me!) as my smear test came back normal. No idea what on earth it could be but personally I'm hoping for it to be something menopause related. Yes, I'm 'only' 40 but it's been a very real possibility since surgery when I was 29. The colposcopy is booked for the same day my mum's big meeting to arrange her discharge is scheduled.
So that's the good(ish) news. On the more difficult side we have the fact I left my job almost a week ago. Unscheduled. I had given notice but a change of computer system and being expected to learn all these new procedures for the sake of a handful more shifts got me stressed out of my gourd until I felt I had no choice but to walk out.
It wasn't bad timing either as the next day my mum had a fall in the hospital and has been really shaken and upset ever since. She is TERRIFIED they'll find a reason she can't come home. It has been a great relief to know I can be there every day to support her.
Then there's the thing where my dad, who is my next door neighbour and my mum's ex partner (by about 14 years at this point), got mortally offended that he "wasn't invited*" to the home assessment mentioned before that he's now not talking to me and hasn't been back to visit my mum. Absolutely pathetic! Unfortunately, the home assessment was nothing to do with him, not to mention that my mum didn't want him there and neither did I...also, he didn't help me prepare for it and actually got in my way quite a lot.
Not that he has to help me as an adult or my mum as his ex the sudden change of heart has made things a good bit more difficult. I kind of hope it's just that the stress of the whole situation has got to him and he'll come around but he has a loooong track record of this sh*t so I won't hold my breath.
*Incidentally, he has never invited me over to his house (assuming we can exclude him asking me to check his emails and the like) and that's INCLUDING the 20 years we lived in Somerset. All the times I visited it was me asking if we could come up.
So yeah, that's where we're at. My mum has times when she wishes she hadn't survived but as someone I know went through that just last week - he mother passed just 2 days after a stroke - I am immensely grateful my mum is still with me and with as much of her abilities and personality intact as she has. We could have lost her in more ways than just by death.
Not gonna lie though, this is by far the most stressful experience of my life...I can only imagine how much worse it must be for my mum.
UPDATE
The colposcopy was fine - no idea what was causing the severe, heavy, prolonged, non-menstrual bleeding but it may have been stress related as it turned out one of my daughters was having the exact same thing!
