Patient Patients

Dad wasn't quite as good today when we visited as he was yesterday, but at least he's better than he was this time last week. After so many disappointments over the past two and a half weeks since he was admitted, I think he dares not even hope that he might be coming home soon.

There are two other patients in Dad's bay, Tony and Iain, who also seem to have had their hospital stays extended longer than they were expecting when they came in. It's awful to see their morale ebb away the same as Dad's did. Colchester General Hospital has been on the national news this weekend, because it's struggling to cope with the number of patients it has coming through its doors. I can truly vouch for this from what I've seen both in Dad's ward and in the x-ray department, were they often run out of space for the massive queues of inpatients, outpatients and emergency cases waiting to go in to one of only two x-ray rooms. It's usually been chaos in there whenever we've gone down to wait with Dad. Individual staff members are mostly kind and have the potential to be competent, but they are held back by being so short-staffed that they can hardly cope with the requirements of running a ward or clinic efficiently. All very worrying when you have a much-loved Dad in there who is desperate to be discharged. We are fervently hoping that the permanent drain valve will be successfully fitted tomorrow and that he can come home soon.

These are some of the flowers given to Mum by a friend of hers and Dad's from Church who I had heard them speak of but hadn't met until this week when she popped in - a lovely lady called Sue who will be able to take communion with them at home, which I know they will both draw a great deal of comfort from.