Mumma sent me some photographs of your brunch in the beautiful garden with Claire. It looks as though you girls had a wonderful time creating a gorgeous hairstyle she might use for her wedding. I just loved it. I'll have to ask Mumma if I can put a photograph up on the blog of her hair.
It's a cloudless day again today and I have all the doors open, plus Papa's doors on to the side verandah. I can hear him practising his guitar. He has a lesson this afternoon at U3A. Because he will be out for the afternoon, I am on kitchen duty and will make a lovely stew for tea tonight.
I was watching one of my favourite programmes on television last night - 24 Hours in Emergency. The programme is a documentary of 24 hours in the Emergency Department of St George's Hospital in London and apparently is one of the busiest emergency departments in the world.
What I most love about the programme is the stories the people tell, not only of how they injured themselves or became sick, but also the stories of their lives. The camera jumps back and forward to speak to the person while they are in hospital, with the relatives and when they are back home again.
This particular story was about a very elderly gentleman, in his mid 80's who had come in by ambulance because of a very severe cough and difficulty breathing. His wife came in the ambulance with him and you could see that she was quite a bit younger than her husband, probably my age.
Because of his age, the doctors didn't want to do anything invasive to his body such as putting in a drain - he had fluid in his lungs, so they decided to see if giving him some drugs would do the trick. He had previously been in hospital with the same thing some time before and the doctors wondered if perhaps the previous infection hadn't completely cleared up.
Time passed and it became obvious that the drugs weren't working and the man was becoming quite distressed with his breathing. The doctors decided they would have to put in the drain but first they took the man's wife into the 'relatives' room to have a chat to her. They wanted to know that if he took a sudden turn for the worse had her husband made any decision as to what he would want them to do. Often with very elderly folk it is better to let them die peacefully than try and extend their life which might entail months of suffering before they die.
As you would imagine, his wife became very teary at having to make such a decision and said she would have to talk to her husband first. As her husband was suffering from the early stages of Dementia and was therefore quite forgetful, she wasn't sure if he would understand her questions.
As it was he did and he said that if things didn't go according to plan, he didn't want major surgery. He wanted to be allowed to die peacefully.
When his wife went back to the doctor, still in tears, she said that she knew her husband's decision was him thinking of her and the burden he might be on her if the doctors continued trying to keep him alive.
As the camera was going back and forth, in one of its 'forths' when she is sitting at home after everything was over and talking about his illness and their relationship she talked about how she had met her husband.
Her husband was the friend of one of her brothers and one day, he asked her if he could walk her to school. She said she didn't think anything of it, just someone walking her to school. At this time she was nearly in her last year of high school. As they were walking he said to her, "You know, you are just the sort of person I would like to marry." and she said, "Well! Why don't you ask me?" And he did!
After they were married and no children were coming along, they decided to check things out with the doctor. The doctor did some tests and told them the sad news that they would never have children of their own.
Not to be deterred, they adopted two beautiful African children, a little girl and a little boy and THEN when she was about forty and feeling a bit unwell, she discovered she was pregnant. So in the end they had three children!
At the end of the programme, the camera zoomed in on her crocheting something for one of her grandchildren and there sitting beside her with a big smile on his face was her husband. Three cheers for the doctors at St George's!
Here are some of the staff that appear on the programme. You might be able to see a programme on You Tube.
Love Nanxxxx PS I love the different colours of their uniforms.
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