We were introduced to the Intensive Care 'diary'. A charity called Neurocare provides each patient with a diary which can be used by staff and visitors to make a record of time in NCC. The diary starts with H, and D, a student nurse, chatting about their care of Liz in the early days. Margaret and I started writing on the 24th September. We recorded the many visitors who began arriving. On the Monday we realised that after the joy of seeing Elizabeth survive, and come out of sedation, there was still a long bumpy road ahead. Elizabeth acquired a chest infection. It was standard infections taking advantage of her weakness. The secretions in her chest became intense. Numerous times in the day a nurse was required to lower a suction pipe down into her chest to clear the phlegm. Elizabeth became listless and lethargic. She found it an effort to lift her right arm, and had her eyes closed most of the time, drifting in and out of consciousness. We were also painfully aware of her discomfort. Liz was unable to move nearly all the muscle that are controlled by conscious effort. This included her tongue, and facial muscles. She was thirsty, yet could not drink.
Elizabeth was visited by her grandmothers and aunts. Her pastor from Sheffield, and ours from Leicester visited. One of Elizabeth's closes friends Anna, was on her university year abroad, along with her two past flatmates, Tash and Mary.
Elizabeth's Leicester friends all came, something they have maintained. The list is now at 158 different visitors. many have visited Liz in Sheffield and Leicester too.
Our good friends Tom and Ellie fixed it for us for Joanna, Margaret and myself to lived in Ellie's parents house, which, when the traffic was calm, was only twenty minutes drive away from the hospital. This was a wonderful gift, because it also came with the bonus of Ellie's Aunt, Pat. Pat was very experienced in supporting traumatised families as she had been a Hillsborough volunteer, supporting a bereaved family after the tragic accident killed many Liverpool and Sheffield fans in April 1989.
Loxley became the place we were able to retire to in the evenings and relax. I found that getting up early and walking in the nearby countryside was a great blessing. I met local people and chatted with them, including Dhilar, an Iraqi Kurd, who owned a local corner shop. I enjoyed buying local produces like milk from 'Molly Cow', and oven bottom buns. See https://parentsguidetopets.blogspot.com/2018/10/learning-about-loxley.html for a description on our time in Loxley. Also https://parentsguidetopets.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-names-of-most-charming-of-world-no.html for my thoughts on Thomas Haliday, a historical figure from the Loxley valley.
Helen and Nigel, the owners of the house we stayed in, were living in Scotland, having recently retired. Nigel had worked as a GP in Sheffield for many years. I enjoyed borrowing his A to Z map and noticing that he had ancient post-it notes saying things like, "26, Almond Cres. Mrs Brown, chesty cough, week heart." Nigel also taught at Sheffield University and represented GPs on the BM, visiting almost every country in the world. Helen was a historian at Sheffield University. Her sister Pat looked after us, but we were able to meet Helen just before our time in Sheffield came to an end. We shared a meal at the Admiral Rodney, a local pub in Loxley. Helen showed me some of the books she had written about local history, which were fascinating to read.
We developed a routine. Both of our work places gave us great support and we were off until half term. I woke early and went for a morning walk, exploring the edge of Sheffield as it heads into the Peak District. Just before eleven am we headed off to the hospital, up the notorious Hagg Hill, a hill all Sheffield cyclists know well. We were able to park in the hospital multi story car park most of the time, but there was a fierce completion for the spaces, which also included parking next to pillars which required expert skills in parking and squeezing through tight spaces. We were able to get a parking permit reducing the cost of parking considerably. Sometimes we parked at a local pub called the Francis Newton. From the car park we walked into the outpatient department, under the road and into the Hospital building, past the chapel, with it's open doors and empty enticing space. From here we had the eleven stories to ascend. Once the lifts must have been the pride of the building. Twenty lifts, and a small tight staircase, there almost as an after thought. Now the lifts were quite alarming, with only two or at the most three working. Once when we were there, a lift stopped, the doors opened, and the door was four feet above the floor level. We witnessed a strong man lift down a frail old lady with a stick. We entered one lift as a roller from the doors fell off and crashed to the floor. No one was hurt. I reported it to a nurse and we completed an online risk assessment. This evidently lead to an official apology from a weary handy man who had obviously been battling with these lifts for many years, and was resigned to failure. I thought of a lion tamer at the zoo who's lions would not do what they were told. See https://parentsguidetopets.blogspot.com/2018/10/story-on-stairs.html.
We realised that we would need to break up the days, and ensure that Liz got a rest from us. Also Joanna took charge of making sure she received the right number of visitors to match her energy levels. Liz was consistently lovely to her visitors. The care Liz received was exemplary.
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