The Communist Escapes

The poor Communist hasn't had much of a mention on this blog recently. He was taken into hospital from the nursing home in early January and had languished there ever since, while they did test after test which all came up negative. Some of the tests seemed to be exactly the same ones that they'd done in the other Leeds hospital - there doesn't seem to be much communication between the two.

We could never find out why he was still there or what they were doing: there never seemed to be anyone about who knew.

Finally some deeply stupid person made the mistake of asking him where he wanted to go when he left hospital.

Now, whilst he was in hospital we were continuing to pay for the nursing home, to keep his place, at the astronomical £590 per week. He needs twenty-four hour care: he can't move much: he needs to be turned twice every night: to get him from the bed to a chair, say, takes two nurses and a hoist.

So my soon-to-be-eighty-four five-feet-tall mother wouldn't have much of a chance of looking after him, really: and I certainly couldn't cope on my own either.

But when asked "Where would you like to go?", the Communist took it to be one of the following options:

1) Would you like to have two legs and be twenty-four again and go home?

OR

2) Would you like to be eighty-four with one leg missing and go to live in a nursing home full of ancient people with senile dementia?

The Communist, not surprisingly, came down rather hard in favour of Option 1. And then, when another medical professional pointed out that Option 1 wasn't entirely realistic, he got very upset, and remained that way for about a week, whilst the hospital staff wondered what to do about it and told us repeatedly that unfortunately there were no doctors about at the moment and failed to discharge him.

Just as I thought I was going to have to go in there and stamp my foot and blow my top, a very strange thing happened.

My mother did it for me.

She went to visit him one afternoon and asked why he was still in hospital.

"I'm not sure," said the nurse, "and there aren't any doctors about at the moment. We'll try to find one to talk to you tomorrow."

And my mother went ballistic and jumped straight into a quotation from Macbeth.

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!" she yelled. "That's all you ever say! You've been saying it for a fortnight and meanwhile my husband's stuck in here getting more and more depressed and it's a nightmare to visit him because of parking the car. I want you to LET HIM OUT and I want it NOW!"

And they did. By later on that same evening he was back in the nursing home.

My mother was rather smug, and I was Very pleased with her.

It's not ideal, of course, and he still has not accepted that he can't come home for good. But at least he likes the food, and can wear his own clothes, and the staff are kind and friendly. It's the best of some grim alternatives, for the moment.