Relatives' Room

Backblipped on 21st July 2012

And so we woke, and almost immediately, the phone rang, and FiL asked what we'd arranged because he couldn't remember. We said we'd be down asap.

So it was straight to the hospital in Exeter. We made good time - there wasn't much traffic around on Sunday morning. We found FiL, and MiL's brother and sister-in-law in the relatives' room on the ward. It was obvious that MiL was in a very bad way.

So, we spent several hours in the hospital. MiL was in and out of consciousness, but still very MiL like - laughing (with difficulty) at the things that would usually amuse her, and perfectly well aware of what was happening. She'd had the last rites from Father Dennis on Saturday evening, and we knew we were there to say goodbye to her.

We told her we loved her, I thanked her for making the Wonderspouse, and told her she was the best MiL ever. We stroked her hands, and kissed her. She struggled to breathe and talk, even though she was on huge amounts of oxygen through her mask. Her poor ravaged body simply couldn't cope with any more. We'd feared this day since the initial diagnosis of lung cancer last summer.

MiL's brother phoned her other brother, and arranged that he'd visit too. In the meantime, FiL, the Wonderspouse and I had a Sunday lunch of ham sandwiches that the Wonderspouse had made before we left home - FiL was really grateful that he'd been brought a sandwich. The nurses on the ward made us tea and coffee.

FiL told us what had happened when the letter I posted on Thursday arrived. As it turned out, had I posted it one day later, MiL would have been too ill to read it. She'd enjoyed the grunting hedgehog and told FiL where she'd like him to live in the house (and made him grunt and made everyone on the ward jump), and, FiL said, she'd actually smiled for the first time in a while when she read my letter.

So that shopping trip was worth it after all.

We went back to say last goodbyes to MiL, before getting back into the car and heading home. There was nothing more we could do, and FiL would spend MiL's final hours or days (we didn't know at that point - the doctors told us it could be hours, could be days, but would certainly not be as long as a week) alone with her, sitting on a reclining chair next to her bed in the hospital. The nurses were discussing moving her into a side room that had become free.

We headed for home to wait for news, having assured FiL that we'd be there for him, and having instructed him to tell MiL that we'd look after him.

We got home utterly exhausted, but didn't really sleep.