The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me (22 page)

The doors opened. A crowd at the second
floor pressed forwards and blocked the exit of those already in the lift,
including us. There was a lot of polite pushing and shoving. The old man behind
me still didn’t manage to get out.

‘Doors closing.’

‘Oh, bugger!’ he shouted, as the doors
closed in front of him again.

Heather and I left the elevator, and began
to walk down the endless corridor to Ward 52.

We entered the ward and went up to the
reception desk.

‘We’ve come to see Mrs Slevin,’ I said to
the nurse on reception.

‘I’m sorry, but it’s not visiting time yet,’
she smiled.

‘I tried calling first,’ I replied, ‘but
after waiting half-an-hour for someone to answer the telephone we gave up and
came down in person.’

I didn’t tell her the receptionist had hung
up on me.

‘Sorry about that,’ apologised the nurse. I
suppose it wasn’t her fault.

‘So how is my mum?’ I asked.

‘You’ve missed the consultant,’ she said.
‘His round was at 10 o’clock.’

‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘I was asked to call
after then so that I could get more information.’

‘Oh, I see,’ she replied, and started to
look around for someone else to talk to.

A man in a white coat and a stethoscope
around his neck came up to us.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked. He was smiling
broadly at us, too; it was almost as though they’d all been on a course.

‘I just want to know how my mother is. Mrs
Rose Slevin, admitted from Charnwood nursing home yesterday. She had a stroke.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘She’s very comfortable
just now.’

‘But I want to talk to someone about what’s
happened to her,’ I said. ‘Are you a doctor?’

‘Yes, I am,’ he replied, still smiling.

‘So… What’s happened to her?’ I asked.

‘I don’t really know,’ he beamed. ‘She’s not
one of my patients. Let me have a look at the notes.’

‘Whose patient is she?’ asked Heather.

‘She’s under Mr… Mmmmmm… Not really sure,’
he said. He was still smiling, though a little less broadly now. ‘I’ll find out
for you.’

The doctor leafed through mum’s notes. ‘She
hasn’t had a stroke,’ he said.

‘She hasn’t?’ Heather and I looked at each
other.

‘She’s been down for a scan, and there was
no sign of a stroke whatsoever,’

Now he looked more radiant than ever.

‘So what has happened?’ I asked.

‘If you ring this number you can speak to
the consultant’s secretary who is in charge of your mother’s case,’ he said,
grinning from ear to ear.

I wondered why the consultant’s secretary
was in charge of my mother.

He was scribbling down a telephone number on
a small notepad he took from his coat pocket.

‘You can make an appointment to see the
consultant who can tell you everything you need to know,’ he said. He looked so
pleased with himself it was as though he had just discovered the cure for the
common cold.

‘Can’t you just tell me?’ I asked.

‘She’s not my patient,’ he repeated, and
again the beatific smile seemed to fade just a little.

‘Where is she now?’ asked Heather.

‘Ah,’ he said brightly. ‘She’s just around
the corner in room four.’ He could answer that one.

The result of speaking to several nurses and
a doctor, then, was that we knew little more about what had actually happened
to mum than we had before we had arrived.

We wandered off to find room four.

WE ENTERED THE ROOM and stood there in
silence.

Mum was asleep, but sitting almost upright
on a bed. She was wearing one of those hospital gowns which ties at the neck
and sides and is open all the way down the back; it was in red and yellow and
had the words:
Walsgrave Hospital do not remove
repeated over and over
across it, as though previous patients had taken theirs home, perhaps to wear
out to a nice restaurant.

She looked 10 years older than she had the
day before. Her mouth hung down on the left hand side, and I knew she was in
serious trouble. How did I know this? Her hair was a mess. In 50 years I had
never seen her with her hair not looking immaculate. Even as her condition
deteriorated at Charnwood House, this had held true. She believed a man under
her bed was eating her chocolates at night, she thought she was pregnant and
going to marry a fighter pilot, and she thought that I was her brother and
worked as a council bullfighter; but she never missed getting her hair done
every Wednesday.

A plastic tube ran from a needle inserted
into the back of her left hand up to a saline drip over her head. Above her bed
a white plastic sign, hung on a nail, simply stated: NIL BY MOUTH.

Beneath the white blanket which covered her,
her legs were exposed below the knee, and I winced when I saw how slender and
stick-like they were. She had never been a big woman, but now she was a waif:
frail and elderly, alone and very vulnerable.

Mum opened her eyes, looked at me and
smiled.

‘Hi mum,’ I said, as I leaned forwards and
kissed her on the forehead. ‘How are you doing?’

 Bloody stupid question really.

She smiled at me and nodded.

A different doctor came into the room.

‘I just want to do a few simple tests,’ he
explained.

He gripped mum’s right hand in his and asked
her to squeeze his hand as hard as she could. I could see her fingers tighten
around his palm.

‘That’s very good, Mrs Slevin,’ he said,
gently replacing her hand on the blanket by her side. ‘Now the other hand.’

He put mum’s left hand in his, and again
asked her to squeeze his palm as hard as she could. There was no perceptible
movement in her fingers.

‘As hard as you can, Mrs Slevin,’ he
repeated.

Still her fingers did not move. Even from
where I was standing at the other side of the bed, I could tell there was no
pressure there.

He put her hand back, moved to the end of
the bed, straightened mum’s feet and put the palm of his hand against the sole
of her right foot.

‘Push hard, Mrs Slevin, please,’ he said,
and I could see mum’s toes curl, as she straightened her leg, and pushed his
hand away.

‘Very good, indeed,’ he said, ‘and now the
other foot. Push against me as hard as you can, if you please, Mrs Slevin.’

There was almost no movement at all. No toe
curling and no pressure.

‘Try again, Mrs Slevin,’ he said, ‘push
hard.’

Nothing.

He moved to the top of the bed and produced
a small torch from his top pocket. He shone it twice into both of mum’s eyes.

‘Mmm,’ he said to himself.

It’s funny how the sound ‘Mmm’ can convey so
much concern. It really doesn’t mean anything, it isn’t even a proper word, but
when I heard it, my heart sank.

‘Now I want you to smile a great big smile
for me, Mrs Slevin,’ he said. ‘Give me the biggest grin you can. Come on now,
you can do it!’

Mum smiled on the right side of her mouth
only. The left side stayed put.

‘Mmm,’ he said again, and started to make
some notes.

‘What’s the story?’ I asked.

Without replying he walked slowly out into
the ward, and we followed him. He closed the door, so that we were all outside
mum’s room. There was a telephone ringing and ringing somewhere on the ward;
no-one was moving towards it. I thought about the relative on the other end.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m her son,’ I said.

‘Well, your mother has suffered a very
severe stroke,’ he said. ‘It has killed the swallowing reflex in her throat,
and has paralysed the left side of her body, head arm, side and leg. I’m afraid
it is very serious.’

‘We’ve just been told that she hasn’t had a
stroke,’ I said, clutching at the proverbial straw.

‘The scan didn’t show anything,’ said Heather.

‘Sometimes that’s the case,’ he explained.
‘Sometimes, if the scan is done straight away after the stroke, nothing shows
up. Sometimes it takes a few days for the bruising on the brain to appear. I am
confident that, if we repeated the scan in the next few days, the stroke would
be there.’

‘I see,’ I nodded.

‘A stroke is an attack on the brain,’ he
went on. ‘Because the brain controls everything we do, and all of our senses,
wherever the stroke hits the brain it impairs those functions which are controlled
by that particular area of the brain.’

I nodded slowly.

‘In your mother’s case, the stroke occurred
in an area of the brain that controls left side body movement, and the
swallowing reflex; it has damaged that part of your mother’s brain, and therefore
those functions are currently lost to her.’

‘Will she get them back?’ asked Heather.

‘Too early to tell,’ he replied. ‘Some
people make a full recovery after a stroke, others make only a partial recovery
in time, others make no recovery at all. The first few days are critical. If
progress is going to be made, it usually starts to show within the first couple
of days.’

‘That’s today,’ I said.

‘We mustn’t give up hope,’ he said.

As soon as he said that I felt that there
was no hope.

‘I’ll leave you now,’ he said quietly, and
walked away down the ward.

We went back into the room.

Mum was asleep again.

A nurse came into the room.

‘I just need to take Rose’s blood pressure,’
she announced.

‘The doctor says she’s lost the swallowing
reflex,’ I said. ‘How will she be able to eat?’

‘What a shame,’ said the nurse. ‘When that
happens we feed them through a tube, it goes up the nose and down directly into
the stomach. If it’s going to be long-term, then we fit a peg.’

‘What’s a peg?’ asked Heather.

‘It’s a very simple medical procedure where
we insert a valve called a peg into the wall of the stomach, and attach the
feeding tube that way. It’s a lot more comfortable for them than having a tube
continually stuck up your nose.’

‘Could I take the telephone number of the
ward?’ I asked, thinking about waiting another half-an-hour for someone to
answer the telephone at the switchboard in the morning, ‘so I could come
directly through to here, and avoid the main switchboard?’

‘Of course you can,’ she said, brightly.
‘I’ll write the number down for you.’

The nurse scribbled some digits on a scrap
of paper and handed it to me.

Heather and I waited in room four for
another hour or so; mum didn’t wake, and we went home.

The next morning I rang the ward.

The phone rang and rang, and rang and rang.
After 20 minutes, someone answered it.

‘Walsgrave Hospital.’

I tried to remain calm and to give the
receptionist no excuse to put down the telephone on me again.

‘I’m ringing to see how Mrs Slevin spent the
night,’ I said.

‘What ward is she on?’

I was confused.

‘Your ward, Ward 52,’ I said.

‘This is the main switchboard.’

I had to stifle the rising scream inside me.

‘I have been ringing the ward number
directly,’ I replied, as patiently and politely as I could.

‘If the ward doesn’t answer within so many
rings the call automatically diverts back to the switchboard.’

‘Can you please put me through to Ward 52?’
I asked very softly.

‘Hold the line please.’

The telephone ringing tone started to
repeat, and repeat and repeat.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ I shouted into the
receiver.

Ten minutes later, the phone was answered.

‘Ward 10.’

‘What?’ I gasped, ‘I wanted Ward 52!’

‘I’ll transfer you back,’ said the voice.

The phone began to ring and ring again. I
waited and waited, the frustration welling up inside me like a tidal wave.
Fifteen minutes later, the call was finally answered. By this time I had been
trying to get through to mum’s ward for 45 minutes. The voice was one that I
had come to hate.

‘Walsgrave Hospital.’

I was back at the switchboard again.

‘OH, FUCK OFF!’ I shouted.

The line immediately went dead.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I slammed the receiver down onto the cradle.

‘I’ll get my coat,’ sighed Heather.

I called into work and told them I wouldn’t
be in for a few days at least. Then we drove over to the hospital again.

In the last few years in Britain there has been an alarming and disturbing rise in the number of assaults carried out by
members of the public against hospital staff. No-one could justify or condone
this, but having experienced first-hand the way some hospitals are run I can
understand it. When I arrived at Walsgrave that morning I was ready to kill
someone.

We went back up in the elevator to Ward 52.

‘I’ve come to see how Mrs Slevin is today,’
I said through gritted teeth to the nurse at the desk.

‘I’ll check for you,’ she replied. ‘I’ve
only just come on duty.’

She scanned her computer screen and
obviously couldn’t find mum.

‘Where’s Mrs Slevin?’ she asked a colleague
behind her.

The colleague shrugged her shoulders.

Heather walked down to room four, and then
came back.

‘Her room’s empty,’ said Heather.

‘Where’s Mrs Slevin?’ asked the nurse at the
desk to a passing doctor.

‘She’s been transferred to Ward 38,’ he
said, without looking over or breaking his stride.

‘She’s on Ward 38,’ announced the nurse
brightly.

We nodded and went back to the lifts.

We found mum on Ward 38, lying flat on her
back, fast asleep. Her NIL BY MOUTH sign had followed her down, and was again
hanging over her head. A plastic feeding tube had been inserted up her nostril,
and a blue plastic mask covered her nose and mouth. I could tell they were also
giving her oxygen.

‘The oxygen levels in her bloodstream are a
little low,’ explained a nurse when I asked about it. ‘So we’re giving her
oxygen through the mask to help her to breathe more easily.’

I noticed mum’s left leg was bent at the
knee, so that the sole of her foot was touching her right knee. I tried to
straighten the leg but it wouldn’t budge. Mum woke when I moved the leg, it was
obviously painful for her to have it moved.

‘That leg has become rigid since the
stroke,’ said a nurse. ‘We’ve made an appointment for the physiotherapist to
come and see her about it.’

It was now the third day since the stroke
and I was keen to see if there had been any improvement in mum’s condition.

I took her left hand in mine.

‘Squeeze my hand as hard as you can, mum,’ I
said.

Nothing.

‘Come on, you’re not trying,’ I said.
‘Squeeze hard.’

The pressure of her fingers increased around
mine; but it was so gentle that it was like the touch of a butterfly’s wing.

I put her hand back onto the blanket.

‘The consultant wants to have a word with
you, Mr Slevin,’ said a nurse as she came by. ‘He’ll be down in a minute.’

Heather and I looked at each other; we
didn’t know whether this was a good sign or a bad one. I think we both feared
the worst.

The consultant came into the ward. He was a
very tall, grey-haired gentleman in a dark suit and what looked like a cricket
club tie in red and blue stripes knotted tightly at his neck. He was carrying a
clipboard. As soon as he appeared, the nurses all seemed to look very busy. The
telephone which had been incessantly ringing in the corridor was suddenly
answered. When the call was finished the receiver was replaced. It rang again
and was answered immediately. It was obvious that this man mattered.

‘Hello,’ he said, and introduced himself.
‘We’re going to have to fit a peg into your mother’s stomach so that we can
feed her more easily. The problem with feeding someone nasally is that the
throat can become sore on the inside and it can lead to an infection.’

Heather and I nodded.