Time And Time Again

On Tuesday afternoon I was told that dad would be moved on Thursday from the hospital to the nursing home; but they would phone me about the exact time. On Thursday by 2 pm I had heard nothing, so I called the hospital ward – and was told that no, it had been postponed until Friday. So today again I waited for that phone call; again I heard nothing, and when I called I was told that no, not today, but on Monday! (Remains to be seen what they say then.)

Since I had not been to see dad myself since Tuesday – partly because I kept thinking each day that I had better save my own energy for “tomorrow”! – I went up to the hospital again late this afternoon. He was more “awake” than he was last time, but not really very much more “aware”.

His sense of time and space has been out of order since before; but visiting him at the hospital now it strikes me even more forcefully how dependent we really are on Time for our sense of orientation in this world…

Every time I opened my mouth a time-related word seemed to popping out, and at the same time I realized that this probably conveyed very little to him now…

When I first came in, he said he was surprised to see me in the middle of the night. (It was 5.30 pm and the sun shining from a blue sky outside the window.) So automatically I tried to correct… Then I tried to get a grip of whether he remembered that I had been to visit earlier this week – or anything else that had happened earlier in the week (he didn’t). And then there was the task of trying to explain that my brother will be coming… next week? … on Monday? … in a few days? … soon? …  And so on… 

Dad in his turn tried to convey to me his own impressions: While I boringly tried to drag him into Reality and explain that he has been spending the last five days in a hospital bed, he tried to tell me that he had been away travelling and meeting relatives and friends and having quite an interesting time, only a couple of days ago! My sense of logic tells me this can only have been happening in his dreams… but to him those dreams seem more real than Reality now…

Thinking about it as I walked home in the warm summer evening… As long as his dreams are pleasant, perhaps we should just try to be glad for him that he is able to spend so much time in that “other world”…

But it is certainly not easy to make Communication “between worlds” work without reference to Time And Space! 

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

---

¹⁴ And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.

About the photos in this post:

1. Gulls over the river. See more photos from the same occasion in my Thursday post at Soaring Through the World.

2. For more of these glass birds, see today’s post in my Picture Book. They’re hovering over the hospital foyer. I have been thinking for months that I should take photos of them, but usually when I’m at the hospital I don’t have the camera with me + in the daytime the foyer is always a busy place full of people. But on Tuesday after I had been to visit dad, it was after “business hours”… few people around… and I did have the camera with me. So I took the opportunity.

Updates

1. Update on the hospital visit in the morning with my dad:
Worrying beforehand did help. It all went much better today than last time. (See yesterday's post about Hope and Worry.) We are still not much wiser, though. The specialist will have to do some digging into the past, trying to collect medical records from other places, before he can determine whether new medication might possibly be of any help. For me, however, it was a huge weight off my shoulders that this time an assistant from home care was also with us through the whole visit.

2. Does this experience also really mean that I feel I have to update my theology? In case someone actually feels unsure about it: No. I never seriously thought that when Jesus said "Do not worry about tomorrow" he meant: Never think in advance. The whole context in Matthew 6 has to do with a much bigger picture, what things we find most important in life. (To increase our bank account, or our compassion.)
                                                   

3. Update on the computer situation:
In the late afternoon, I tried a couple of more internet tips on the dead computer, but without success. I'm not going to make any more desperate attempts, that might only lessen the chances of retrieving  lost data from the crashed hard drive by help of other means. My brother will probably be able to help me with that later on.

So I have accepted the fact that I will have to buy a new computer. It has been on my mind for a while anyway. Just hoping the laptop will continue to keep its spirit up in the meantime, until I decide on the best alternative for the future.

Today I have been able to safely transfer all my original 2009 photos, and also some edited ones, from my backup USB flash drive onto the laptop. Phew!


It's not the End of the World.

Hope And Worry

Early in October, I had three blogposts entitled The Worries of Tomorrow, The Troubles of Today, and Another Day; preceded by a Quotation (41/09) from the Bible about worrying; or rather about NOT to worry about tomorrow, "for tomorrow will worry about itself". You'll find the posts in the Blog Archive for October.

The gist of it all (in those blogposts) was that I found that a bit more worrying "yesterday" would for once have been in place, before accompanying my dad on a visit to the hospital, which turned out just energy-consuming, irritating, exhausting, unproductive and a general waste of time for everyone involved, because of lack of proper planning, and too much optimism.

Now it's time for a new attempt. I can only hope I have worried enough in advance this time! The blood samples got taken last time (should have been taken a week before that, and could have been done elsewhere, but weren't). Tomorrow, home care staff will be accompanying dad all the way to take care of all the practical assistance he needs. (Which I can't provide because of my own chronic pain problems. Which last time's experiences proved.) A little while ago I phoned the home care organizer and checked that we still agree on this and that proper preparations have been made by them this time. I will meet up to sit in on the actual talk with the doctor; that's all. (Which will probably be more than enough for me for one day.)

Until that is over and done with, I will try and resist my inner urges to waste more energy on attempts to resuscitate my dead computer (see yesterday's post). It is unlikely to get any deader than it already is by waiting a bit. 

Another Day

I'm still really tired after the adventures of the day before yesterday (see The Troubles of Today 6 Oct) - and this whole tomorrow-today-yesterday thing is getting really confusing now! I will have to think of some other kind of heading soon...

I was made aware by comments from concerned friends on the last two posts, that it might perhaps be a good idea to repeat the facts that I myself suffer from chronic pain in neck-shoulder-arm, and that my dad has problems walking (among other things - it is a neurological problem). It was too far for him to walk within the hospital, and I can't push a wheelchair, and these facts combined caused A LOT of problems - which I really should have foreseen more clearly than I did (and protested more loudly than I did about the arrangements, or lack of, in this case). I probably would have, if I had had a bit more time to think than just finding out about the appointment half a day in advance... Hence I also had not seen the letter which said quite clearly that blood samples should be taken a week before the doctor's appointment. Home care staff missed that line, which made the whole extremely tiresome day quite meaningless, because without the test results the doctor of course could say nothing. This is what I had in mind in the last post when I argued that "worrying" a bit more beforehand, in this particular case, might actually have helped...

Yesterday, I tried to call home care to discuss how to avoid this kind of thing next time, but of course the Right Someone was on holiday for the rest of the week. (Aren't they always...) I did talk to Someone Else, but had better try again next week to get hold of Ms. More-Directly-In-Charge to make sure. So it's still hanging over me.

Today I was still feeling strangely extraordinarily stressed... It kept getting worse until in the late afternoon it dawned on me that I had forgotten to take my blood pressure pills in the morning.  (The fact that I forgot to take them still indicates stress...)

This was another depressing post to write and probably to read. I don't want to write stuff like this. I want to write fun-to-read stuff. I hope I'll be able to get back to that soon. Thanks for listening.

The Troubles of Today

(Readers are advised to read yesterday's posts before this one.)

Sorry, Jesus! For once (-?-) I have to argue with you: I actually think a bit more worry yesterday might have saved at least about a dozen people a lot of trouble today. I  would not even be surprised if today shortened my own or someone else's life by a few hours, but that will of course be hard to prove...

I'm lying in bed now, at four in the afternoon, and don't have enough writing energy to go into details. But to sum up: All that came out of today was that some blood samples got taken that should have been taken a week before, which  could have been done locally without going to the hospital in town. Since it was not, all the rest of today's hospital visit was a total waste of time and energy for me, dad, busy specialist doctor, several nurses, receptionists, drivers and others...

Well. One more lesson learned: Next time, home care staff will have to accompany dad to the hospital, even if I sit in on the actual talk with the doctor. What was I thinking?! What was anyone thinking?! "Good will" is not enough to get through a day like today. My dad needs a lot more physical assistance than I can provide; and don't think that just because you're in a hospital, there is always staff at hand... If I knew who to yell at, I'd yell. Loud. However, I don't really know who to blame... Lots of individuals today went out of their way to be helpful; the fault is not with any of them. Tomorrow, I'll try to phone Someone In Charge and talk calmly about how to avoid the whole thing from being repeated...

Thanks to all who responded to my worries from yesterday and who have been thinking and praying. Keep it up, please. I'll need it.

Nightmare and Dayscare

I woke up this morning from a rather confused and bizarre dream. Since I had just recently been discussing such things with blogfriend GB, I decided to try and catch this one before it withered away. I might have done it anyway, dreams interest me and over the years I think I have become rather good at analyzing my own. (With those of others, one can only sometimes make a suggestion. But I believe each person holds the keys to his or her own dreamworld. It just may take some work to "learn the language", so to say.)

Here's mine:

First I was at some kind of school with a lot of different buildnings. I was searching the school library at night for an audio tape. I also started listening to it, but when the tape ran out, I could not find the next one. At some point, I was also having a discussion with some teacher or professor, or maybe more than one.

Then, suddenly, I was in a hospital instead, going around the corridors in a hospital bed on wheels, with raised back support. Somehow, I was supposed to manoeuvre this bed like a wheelchair on my own, without help. I tell you, getting in and out of lifts/elevators was not easy! People kept sending me round from one ward to another, and I had no idea what treatment I was there for.

Finally I arrived at a desk where they told me that I was 20 minutes late, but they would try to fit me in. Fit me in for what? I wondered, and found them very hesitant to answer. They seemed to be avoiding telling me.

I saw a sign with a strange word that I could read, but not understand, and I saw that they were giving people injections. I demanded to know what it was all about. So they told me. It was an injection that might relieve pain, although it had not been properly tested yet, so they really could not say what effect it might have. I was very sceptical, but I was in pain, so I decided I'd try it. While I waited though, I felt I really needed to find a toilet. I was directed down some stairs into the basement. Fortunately, I could now walk. I went down, found the ladies room - and woke up.

The last part of it was the easy one. I very often find myself in search of a bathroom at the end of my dreams. Thankfully, I still always wake up in time to go find my own...

So what's behind the rest?
Yesterday, I was thinking back on my days at school, long ago. This will show up in blogpost(s) to come.
Shortly before I went to bed, I was thinking about one of my English professors at university. Libraries and old audio tapes had also been on my mind - and as usual, I had been listening to an audio book just before I went to sleep. I think that pretty much covers the school part of the dream.

The previous night, my friend G's wheelchair had been parked in my hall. (For real. She and husband B were staying the night.) G has been in and out of hospitals all her life; she's a 'fighter' but becoming more and more dependent on her wheelchair(s) lately. I also have some experiences of hospital myself. And I have pain problems. Right now, every day the newspapers have big black headlines like "We will not have time to vaccinate everybody" (against swine flu). Last time I had flu was a very bad experience; since then I've had vaccinations every autumn, and I really don't want to catch swine flu if I can avoid it. On top of that, the last thing I watched on TV before I went to bed was the first part of a mini crime series, in which two little boys were kidnapped and kept sedated by injections in hospitallike environment. The only clue the police had, was that on the pictures that were sent to them of the sleeping boys, there was a mysterious word printed on the sheets...

That's it.
No more nighttime scary crime series on TV for me!!!
And certainly no TV news...