I know what I said last time, but all this work’s been getting on top of me. I don’t suppose I should complain really, it pays the bills. Now a few things are coming to an end (and I’ve decided to give myself an evening off) I’m taking an evening off.
The Blood Bowl site is nearly complete — I should have it all wrapped up by next week — which is a relief. It’s been more work than I was expecting in all honesty. I’ve done most of the updates for the theatre school website, but failed to get a ‘quote’ to them before their last committee meeting as I promised. One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest has been and gone (you can read a review here and another one here). My dad’s starting up a company and I went to a meeting in York with him and my brother about their marketing and publicity. Actually I had two reasons for going back up north that weekend.
My Grandma isn’t very well. She’s 88 and has been getting slowly worse for wear. The last year has been most noticeable with her mental health going a bit down hill. She was diagnosed diabetic last year and had been given a whole range of tablets to take to help. When she was being forced to take them she was generally OK. She was keeping on top of things at home and looking after herself. When she was left to her own devices, however, she didn’t take her tablets and got worse. She claims there’s nothing wrong with her (I think this might be something to do with Christian Science, although I’m not totally sure), and so would choose to leave the tablets. When she doesn’t take them her blood sugar goes haywire and she starts to lose her grip on the day-to-day running of her life.
A couple of weeks ago she was found, by the neighbours, in her night dress in the bath. She was just lying there with no water in it, and when asked why, she said she thought she was in bed. They took her into hospital in Middlesbrough. After some tests they found she’s got cancer. (I’m not sure quite what kind, but it doesn’t matter. They don’t know where it started or how long it’s been around, but it doesn’t matter. They only found it by chance so it obviously hadn’t been affecting her very much.)
So, a couple of weekends ago, the whole family went to visit her in hospital. She was bored. Stuck on a ward with no interesting conversation and nothing to do (it even turned out that she didn’t have her glasses with her so couldn’t even do crosswords or anything!). When we were there talking to her she was fine — she asked my brother and I what we were doing, and we told her about our recent activities (I told her about the set building, my brother about his involvement with some music event) — she kept up with the conversation no problem, and we even did a bit of the crossword as a family. Of course they’d been making sure she took all her tablets when she should.
This week she was moved to Guisborough hospital, incidentally the place I was born. I’m told it’s a much nicer hospital where she has her own room with a TV and slightly more attentive nursing care (not that they weren’t good at the James Cook Hospital, but they were a little busier and so couldn’t pay as much close attention to each patient).
My mum visited her in Guisborough at the weekend. She said she was very weak and isn’t eating much (when we were there she said she didn’t have much appetite). I guess there’s no getting away from the fact she’s dying. Of course it’s sad, but she’s comfortable and seems quite happy. I guess she’s had a while to come to terms with it — she’s had friends die and her brother died last September — and it seems to me she’s pretty much accepted it. The doctors have given her three months from the cancer, I suspect it’ll be less than that just from old age.
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