A close call
My wife and I attended our
first antenatal recently. It is run by a team of midwives from our
hospital, but neither of us recognised any of them at the first session. Perhaps
in the next sessions or our next appointments at the hospital we’ll recognise
someone. It’s all been very interesting so far. In the first session, they
separated the mums and dads and asked each group to write down any questions
they had about the pregnancy, the birth, and everything before, afterwards and
in-between. They’ll use the classes to answer those questions and do some other
presentations on pain relief options, breast feeding, handling the baby and
other such topics. We can even have a cuppa and a biscuit during a break – which
handily coincides with my normal routine at home of a cup of tea in the
evenings.
All the other couples appear
to be first-time parents by the sounds of things. Each group came up with some
pretty useful questions. My wife and I have a head-start in some areas already.
We know what it’s like to stay in the hospital overnight, and what the ‘show’
is. We know that you could get a slice of toast and a hot drink from the team,
and that being induced can be long and exhausting. We know how much it costs to
keep the car in the car park overnight, and how important it is that the
placenta comes through after the baby. We know how often someone will keep an
eye on things and how a whole group of midwives will be in attendance when
things kick off.
My parents are very excited
about it. I’m not sure how much my mum understands or whether she realises
she’ll be having a grandchild in a few months, but I do know that we was often
confused about things a year and a half ago when we had problems with the first
pregnancy.
I’m not sure what the right word
or phrase is, but mum has a certain intuition, or "spiritual-ness" about her. I
remember some years ago she was very poorly for a period over the summer. The
problem is that she wouldn’t have been able to properly communicate what was
wrong with her – what was making her feel unwell, or what was bothering her the
most. This is perhaps one of the worst problems of her dementia, not being able to properly communicate what she is feeling.
I remember visiting their
place and it having a terrible smell of sickness. The windows had been shut and
of course she hadn’t been able to bathe properly. My dad was himself tired and
worried himself having to care for her. Getting up and down the stairs is no
easy feat for him after all.
She was immobile, in bed. She
couldn’t keep any food down and had no energy whatsoever. But the most
frightening thing – and perhaps what was truly terrifying and touched a certain
spiritual nerve with me – is that she said my grandparents had come to visit
her. It makes me shiver just to write this. She was evidently so poorly that
her mind was playing tricks on her, but I know on a couple of other occasions in the distant past she would say that she imagined my father's mum to "be" there somehow.
She asked me whether they had
gone home yet, or whether she was going with them. I’m pretty sure she said
something like they had come to take her. I told her, repeatedly, that they were going home themselves
soon and that she would be staying with us. I had to make sure she stayed with me,
in the there-and-now, and to listen to my voice and to feel me holding her. I
could tell that her mind wasn’t functioning properly. He eyes were glazed over
and she couldn’t focus. Simply sitting up in bed made her sick. She could speak – that was a good sign – but it was
intermixed with noises and groans and it really made me think about our immortality and the inevitable.
Several times I had to excuse
myself and go into my old bedroom next door just to take a breather and compose myself. I couldn’t let her or my father see me close to tears.
We really needed to get her
out of that bedroom. The light was dim and it had a very
stifling atmosphere to it. I don’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural and
I’m not a religious person, but the feeling of dread and fear was unavoidable. It was heavy and there was a different smell in the house. It wasn't pleasant at all.
My father and I managed to
manoeuvre her out of bed and down the stairs so that a doctor could see her. Thank
goodness for late-night pharmacies. The doctor had diagnosed her as having a
chest infection and urine infection at the same time. Double whammy, no wonder she was so poorly. I had managed to get her
some medication and, thank goodness, she slowly improved over the
next week.
But, it was a year or two later after routine tests and check-up
that a doctor asked whether she might have had a heart-attack in recent years.
When someone says that, and you think about how sick she appeared to be, you
immediately begin to wonder whether it wasn’t just an infection and was
something more serious. That could have been it. I also keep a keen eye on those adverts on television for dealing with strokes and looking out for the signs - I wish I would have been more wary of that back then.
My dear mum does say the most uncanny if not spookiest of things. Fast forward to a year and a
half ago, at a particular point in time mid-November 2013, when mum would have
had no idea what was happening with my wife and I as we made visits to and from
different hospitals, she makes a random, innocent comment that sends chills up
and down my spine again: she tells us how she had day-dreamed or imagined
seeing a little boy running joyfully around the house, but she had no idea who
he was or how he got there, and she couldn’t catch him.
It was difficult to keep the tears back when she had said that. I wonder if her saying that was indeed just a coincidence?
