It's been a challenging six or so weeks.
My Elderley Relative (ER) was in hospital for 5 and a half weeks, most of which was him recovering to a point where certain procedures could be carried out. My days were spent on the phone with him, or the hosptal, or doing the update email, or answering questions and calls from friends and relatives, or visiting his house and sorting stuff out, paying bills etc (he's Extreme Old School - no DDs, nothing). He had a gas leak, and I had to get that sorted.
My cousin is a Gas Safe plumber, and he came and confirmed there was a leak and attempted to find it. He couldn't, so he turned the gas off, and arranged for him and my brother (who is a Handyman) came out for the day to close down parts of the system and find and fix the leak.
They found it. It was the valve on the boiler. The boiler was almost as old as me, and it wasn't possible to get a new valve for it. We had to get a new boiler. After discussions, my cousin recommended a condenser boiler, which - long story short - meant that it had to be located in the kitchen. So cousin ordered everything, and arranged to come back a couple of days later to start fitting.
Life isn't simple. When they started to look at plumbing the new boiler in, they found that the toilet had been put in on top of the bathroom carpet. They had to remove the toilet, to take the carpet up, to take the floorboards up to get to the pipework. Meanwhile, the landing carpet disintegrated as soon as they lifted it.
They did a proper job including removing the old pipework and water tank, and it took days. They bought new flooring, which we decided to extend over the landing (I'm never going to live that down. I didn't realise just how uch work it was going to be ). They also fitted new taps to the bath and a shower riser, and put ni a bath panel wioth the same flooring on it.
They were amazing.
I'd kept ER apprised of the situation all the way along. He was fully compis mentis by the time this started, he was just physically unwell.
ER had several procedures. More were needed, but some of them could be done on an outpatient basis. On the day when he was scheduled for one procedure, the hospital mentioned discharing him that day. He phoned me, and I said that he couldn't come home, the house was't habitable and wouldn't be ready for another 1 to 2 days. Luckily, they had decided not to release him anyway, he needed one further procedure.
We were then against the clock, and the boys worked non stop to try and get it all done.
.........
When my Dad went into hospital, everything went on hold as I had to support my Dad with phone calls, and support my Mum. It took up a susprising a mount of time. I don't begrudge it at all, it's just a fact.
My Dad, who was only meant to be in hospital for a couple of days, ended up in there for nearly 4 weeks. At the beginning, before the problems became serious, we had agreed that my parents would come and stay with my ER to support him (and so we could support them). As time went on, and my Dad got worse, this looked like it was not going to be possible.
Eventually, it became clear that being in hospital was causing part of the problem, and we were desperately trying to get my Dad released. The Bank Hiliday was looming asd we could see that the hospital were going to keep him in until afterwards, and we weren't sure he woudl cope. My Mum had to battle to get him released before the bank holiday.
He had a couple of days at home, and then they decided that they would, after all, come and stay with ER. It's partly because we haven't seen them for 16 months (they live in a different part of the UK), and they were getting concerened that if we left it much longer, it would be too late.
There's a lot more to this story, but the end result is that they arrived and settled in to his house, just as the boys were finishing up. ER was discharged the following night, and we collected him.
.........
They've formed a Bubble, so it's all within the Covid restrictions. This means that they are near us now, so my brother(s) and I can keep a check on the 3 of them.
It's working really well, and we are trying to support my Mum so it doesn't all fall on her. We've cooked for them, my cousin's wife has cooked for them twice, my sister in law has cooked for them, I've done lots of shopping, we've had covid--safe visits each day.
My ER certainly wouldn't have been OK on his own.
My Aunt (my cousin's Mum) died after having the same procedures, it was the anniversary of her death the week ER was taken ill. He's been out for a few days, and he's looking better each day. Now, today, for the first time, I've been able to exhale.
