‘Wehavebeenbatteredphysically, mentally and psychologically... I am so close to breaking point’
‘The charity for me has been a lifeline’ Rodney Edwards hears about the impact the coronavirus crisis has had on the health of staff working in care homes in the border area
Helen Todd (38) began caring for her husband David (40) after he was diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer. Helen lives with David and their son Josh (12) in Bangor. She is urging people to donate to Cancer Focus NI so the charity can continue helping people at one of the most stressful times of their lives. She says:
When David was diagnosed it was all very sudden and a massive shock. As far as we were concerned he was perfectly healthy. He had the odd headache and sometimes couldn’t remember a word, but nothing to cause any alarm.
Then one Sunday evening he had a tonic-clonic seizure, was taken to hospital in an ambulance and had a CT scan the next morning, which is when we found out he had a tumour.
David had major brain surgery two weeks later but it wasn’t possible to remove all the tumour. He has severe brain injury, brain tumour-related epilepsy and needs a lot of support. He’s a very different person to live with and has chronic fatigue. Life revolves around hospital appointments these days.
David had six weeks of daily
Breast cancer survivor Sonia Moore (52), from Lurgan, is doing a Master’s degree in fashion and textile retail management, inspired by the Cancer Focus NI art therapy sessions she took after her diagnosis. She also used the charity’s counselling service. Sonia is appealing to everyone to support its emergency appeal. She says: radiotherapy, six weeks after brain surgery, and it was during this time that I got involved with Cancer Focus NI. It was just as well because David was extremely unwell during eight months of chemotherapy and I needed support.
Our son Josh is very good and helps me with his dad. He’s doing a really stand-up job. Josh has type 1 diabetes and has to have three glucose checks every night, so I have to get up with him.
I realised I was going to need help and to make sure I was mentally well enough to look after David and began having counselling with Cancer Focus NI. I don’t know where I would be without them.
It was so refreshing to have someone say ‘how can I help you’ instead of ‘how can I help David’.
It was such a relief. I had counselling for six months and then felt I could go back to work full-time.
Later on I went back to Cancer Focus NI for more counselling. I needed to get my head in a good place again. If you don’t talk, your thoughts just fester and you don’t learn to cope with it.
Thank goodness a service like this exists. You never know when you might need them.
I’d encourage everyone to give a donation, big or small, to this wonderful charity so they can continue their excellent work — it’s a real lifeline for people like me.”
Anne’s mind was whirling as she drove the short journey home after finishing her 12hour shift at the care home where she has worked for more than 17 years.
The noise of the rain pelted off the roof of her car, the windscreen wipers slapped back and forth and yet all Anne could hear were 75-year-old Pat’s last gasps of breath two hours before.
The sports-mad great-grandfather who enjoyed a cup of tea with two sugars and a slice of toast with butter and marmalade died from Covid-19.
The silent killer had crept into the home where he had been for six years, got into his body and took him and more than 10 others as quickly as it had arrived.
“I stood there watching him as his respiration got very rapid. His breathing got very heavy and I watched him dying in front of my eyes. I felt helpless, I gave him all the care I could but his body gave up. That pain does not leave you, nor does the feeling of sorrow,” she said.
Anne held Pat’s hand as tightly as she could and as he slipped away, she broke down in tears. Having spent many of her shifts with him she felt like she had lost a part of her.
“I had to phone his family and tell them their loved one was gone and that they weren’t allowed to come in and see him. That was hard, so hard,” she said.
Then she helped to prepare his body for the local undertaker who would arrive later dressed in protective clothing and wearing a face mask.
Pat’s bed was stripped, the room was emptied, and his belongings were placed in a box — the framed black and white photograph of his wedding, the Christmas cards from his children, his reading glasses, the photos from his grandchildren’s confirmation and communion, the birthday card from a sibling.
This is where Pat’s story ended and there have been very many others like him.
“We have been battered physically, mentally and psychologically. Once one patient dies, another one dies and the next you know you have to go through it all again. It is absolutely traumatic, and I am close to breaking point,” said Anne.
“You keep thinking of your patients; the ones who have died from this awful disease,” she said.
Patients
like Nan (80) who used to tell yarns and wore opentoe shoes. She always looked the part.
Then there was Margaret (85), a quiet woman who took great pride in her appearance and sat in her room peering through the window or admiring the freshly cut lilies in the vase by her bed.
“She used to listen to country music and would always sing songs and when her family came in she would give them hugs and say ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’.”
Great-grandmother Brigid (92) enjoyed knitting, reading short stories and taking part in group activities such as painting nature scenes or sunsets. She sent Mass cards to her family and said prayers for her carers.
Anne said
she
feels
“overwhelmed
❝ They may not express their words, but you feel that connection, that love
and shocked” and says every memory over the past number of weeks “has left a scar in my mind”.
Meanwhile in another care home, Mary is looking for antiseptic solution in the attic. She comes across the Christmas decorations in a cardboard box with torn edges.
Peering out of the box is the top of the artificial Christmas tree which each year stands sparkling beside the television in the day room. To the left of it a sign reads ‘Happy Christmas’.
Rose (94) watched Mary and her colleagues decorate that tree, taking great delight in suggesting where the tinsel needed to go while Maura (92) chuckled every time one of the baubles fell and bounced off the floor.
Both Rose and Maura are now dead, their things all packed away like the Christmas tree in the box, their lives switched off like the festive lights and all because of Covid-19.
Despite suffering from dementia, Rose, a wife and grandmother, knew she was going to die.
“She said to me, ‘Everything is going to be okay, don’t worry about me’. We care for those residents, but they help us in return.
“They may not express their words, but you feel that connection, that love through their touch,” she said.
It was the same with Maura, a former nurse who took much delight in being a great-grandmother and cracking jokes.
She used to have porridge for breakfast followed by a cup of tea with no sugar and a chocolate biscuit.
And then there was Liam (98), who was always thankful and full of gratitude.
The garden is the first place Mary now goes to on every break.
She thinks of Liam and the others.
“I sit in the garden and I cry to myself just to relieve the pain,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion.
“I cry because of the pain; the emotional pain which I am undergoing by seeing the patients suffering that much,” said Mary.
“I have been literally breaking into tears, it has been so painful, and I have felt helpless at times, overwhelmed and shocked.
“It is absolutely traumatic and I am close to breaking point.
“You keep thinking of your patients, the ones who have died,” she added.