Long wait for comfort or joy

THERE she was, alone on a commode facing the window, entirely naked save for a thermal vest. This lonely figure, my mum – who only three weeks earlier was signing Christmas cards and laughing at Dad’s Army – stared back at my worried smile and asked quietly if I could please get her some painkillers.

I draped a dressing gown across her shoulders, wrapped a blanket around her legs and walked down the care home corridor in search of pills – and answers about the state she was in.

“We told her to press the buzzer when she was ready,” the carer said, barely looking up from her phone.

I told her Mum’s dementia meant she could no more remember to press a buzzer than she could fly to the Moon. The carer tutted and flounced off to fetch someone.

Mum had fallen at home in the night on December 5. The sensor on her wrist designed to alert a call centre if it hit the floor had failed. She was taken to the ambulance screaming in pain; thank God I was able to throw a dressing gown over her flimsy pyjama top – it was 4C. This was the start of a cold and agonising saga, one which still isn’t over.

Mum spent 29 days in hospital and an MRI scan revealed spine fractures. The NHS is not perfect but, thanks to the quiet kindness of doctors, nurses and ward staff, she was safe.

She slept through most of it. When awake, her weak pleas of “When can I go home?” fought the whirring of an air-filtering machine and a breeze from the open window, needed to combat Covid. I piled more blankets on her, plus woollen walking socks and mittens, but she rarely got warm.

My sister flew in from Ireland and was able to sit with Mum twice before the stress was ramped up again and visits barred. They shipped Mum out to the care home for rehab on December 25. Sis parked outside to get a glimpse of her arrival. Mum shivered in a thin hospital gown and nothing else. She’s 92 and some comfort would have been welcome, even if there was little joy.

I’ve been living on Christmas cake, oranges and tea, and for no real reason pegged up my daily lateral flow tests alongside the Christmas cards.

On New Year’s Day, miraculously, Mum perked up. I fed her mandarin oranges and tea from my flask and she watched The Sound Of Music.

My mum has the biggest and kindest heart and beamed as I reached for her hand through my blue glove. At long last, she was warm.