The latest happenings in a very long year...

My dad is now in a nursing home. 

Dad has had bowel cancer for over a year, and it had spread. For the past 3 or more months dad wasn't interested in anything and spent all of the time laying down on the settee in pain. 

On Christmas Day, instead of the usual day at dad's, it was dinner at ours and then we took dad a dinner to his house... but he didn't want to eat it.

On Wednesday 28th December, I made my usual trip over to see dad with his shopping, but when I got there he was still in his pyjamas and dressing gown, and looked very ill. He actually said that he thinks he should be in hospital. I called one of Dad's very good friends to come over, and then we decided to call an ambulance. I knew the paramedic, Andy, from work. Andy spent an hour with us. He said that he wasn't taking dad into hospital because that's not where he needed to be. I kept trying to change his mind, but instead he called the GP out and had a go at him because nothing was in place care wise for dad, and recommended that the GP got him into respite care asap. I knew the GP from work as well, lol. Anyway... the GP said that he would fit dad with a pump to stop him feeling sick - dad had only picked at food for 7 weeks coz of feeling sick, and then nothing to eat for 5 days. So that afternoon the pump was fitted, and the following day an emergency crisis bed was found in a nursing home. Couldn't have been a better one, and his brother in law is in the same one! 

So today I asked what was going to happen to dad now that the two weeks respite was due to end this week. I was told that it's not just respite, he is there until I don't want him there, and he doesn't have to sell his house either to pay for it - £850 per week!! Social care are paying for it. I should think so too... if he'd been a foreigner coming into our country he wouldn't have had to pay.

Anyway... dad loves it there. They get entertainment once a week, the nurses/carers are fantastic, always ready with a smile, I can't fault the place. This is the first week in a very long year where I have felt relaxed...