westernind (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
westernind) wrote2006-06-13 05:57 pm
westernind) wrote2006-06-13 05:57 pm
Nick
Went to see Nick last night. He has a (hospital) bed set up in my aunt Wendy's downstairs dining room, and she's had the wall knocked through to make one big room downstairs. She sleeps on the sofa in case he needs anything, she doesn't get much sleep because he's waking at 5am needing the next dose of drugs - but then, this isn't likely to go on for too long. The nurses visit two or three times a day, to give the drugs that Wendy can't, for instance the morphine injection directly into Nick's stomach.
There are machines pumping away, for delivering the oxygen-rich air; Nick has a triangular mask of soft plastic that fits over his mouth and nose. He has to remove it for each bite of food. Eating is slow, but then he doesn't want much. The mask we brought him back from Venice fits over the breathing tube, the one like Gareth's but in blues and purple, fits over the breathing tube. As Nick points out with a grin, it makes him look like a Doctor Who monster. He doesn't look anywhere near 47, to me, more like somewhere in his 20s, but with greying hair. But then his life hasn't followed the path of job and marriage and children, he's never moved away from the life he had in his late teens. Not a bad thing, not a good thing. Just a thing. He is of the 'We'.
The smoking thing hangs unspoken. Outside in the garden, my cousin Kitty lights up out of sight of Nick's bed. She looks at me looking at her. "I know, I know" she says. "I'm not preaching", I reply, sadly. We look at each other. Wendy comes out and also lights up. She's started smoking again, after having given up. She says it's because of the stress. We sit in a shared silence for a bit.
Wendy asks me to read the medical notes, because she's finding it a strain being the conduit, the filter between the nurses and the visitors. She'd rather we read the notes directly... it's too much for her, having to interpret. She's not a blood relative to Nick, but then what's that matter? Blood is no guarantee of love in this family. An awful lot of intellectual horsepower, as Simon puts it later, but not much emotional sense among the males. Nick, heartbreakingly, is the one who does have the sense, who's been a human bridge between the strange foreign islands like my full brothers Edmund and Richard, and the mainland of the women. He's kept in touch. When he's gone, there won't be anyone they're prepared to talk to.
Apparently we just missed my father and my half-brother Remy, who left a few minutes before we got there. (He's the brother I've never met - doing a PhD at Bristol apparently, something to do with wireless networking.). Nick says that Remy's hard work, in the sense that geeks are hard work, whereas Damian - the brother I met a few weeks ago - is OK. Not that Edmund and Richard will have anything to do with him, of course. Sharon, my stepmother, has come, flying back from Brussels or Strasbourg. There's no warfare or even disagreement in the house. Frankly amazing given the levels of hatred between her and Wendy, but no-one says but everyone knows, that what Nick wants is family around and that's what matters.
The coughing is bad; we're with Wendy and Kitty still, out in the garden. Wendy says, not to look back into the house - when he first came home, when the coughing started she was transfixed and just stared at him, distressed and helpless, and he asked her not to. It's not a good way to die, but the thrombosis in the leg might kill him first. Part has broken off and blocked one lung, and if another bit does then the end game is quick. Otherwise it'll be more and more morphine.
Still in the garden, and she says the cats don't visit now. Chloe, her own cat, doesn't jump up on Nick's bed or even want to go near him, but she'd like that to change because stroking cats is... good. Kitty also has the fear. It's the suddenness of it. Three weeks ago, no-one knew anything was wrong. Nick had had a pain in the shoulder for months, possibly a couple of years. He wasn't good at going to the doctors. Turns out the pain was from a tumour pressing against the bone.
Time to leave. Back on Sunday.
-----
Comments turned off because... well... don't want anyone to feel they 'have' to comment or whatever. Or feel bad if they don't. (Or not know what to say.) This LJ entry is kind of for me.
There are machines pumping away, for delivering the oxygen-rich air; Nick has a triangular mask of soft plastic that fits over his mouth and nose. He has to remove it for each bite of food. Eating is slow, but then he doesn't want much. The mask we brought him back from Venice fits over the breathing tube, the one like Gareth's but in blues and purple, fits over the breathing tube. As Nick points out with a grin, it makes him look like a Doctor Who monster. He doesn't look anywhere near 47, to me, more like somewhere in his 20s, but with greying hair. But then his life hasn't followed the path of job and marriage and children, he's never moved away from the life he had in his late teens. Not a bad thing, not a good thing. Just a thing. He is of the 'We'.
The smoking thing hangs unspoken. Outside in the garden, my cousin Kitty lights up out of sight of Nick's bed. She looks at me looking at her. "I know, I know" she says. "I'm not preaching", I reply, sadly. We look at each other. Wendy comes out and also lights up. She's started smoking again, after having given up. She says it's because of the stress. We sit in a shared silence for a bit.
Wendy asks me to read the medical notes, because she's finding it a strain being the conduit, the filter between the nurses and the visitors. She'd rather we read the notes directly... it's too much for her, having to interpret. She's not a blood relative to Nick, but then what's that matter? Blood is no guarantee of love in this family. An awful lot of intellectual horsepower, as Simon puts it later, but not much emotional sense among the males. Nick, heartbreakingly, is the one who does have the sense, who's been a human bridge between the strange foreign islands like my full brothers Edmund and Richard, and the mainland of the women. He's kept in touch. When he's gone, there won't be anyone they're prepared to talk to.
Apparently we just missed my father and my half-brother Remy, who left a few minutes before we got there. (He's the brother I've never met - doing a PhD at Bristol apparently, something to do with wireless networking.). Nick says that Remy's hard work, in the sense that geeks are hard work, whereas Damian - the brother I met a few weeks ago - is OK. Not that Edmund and Richard will have anything to do with him, of course. Sharon, my stepmother, has come, flying back from Brussels or Strasbourg. There's no warfare or even disagreement in the house. Frankly amazing given the levels of hatred between her and Wendy, but no-one says but everyone knows, that what Nick wants is family around and that's what matters.
The coughing is bad; we're with Wendy and Kitty still, out in the garden. Wendy says, not to look back into the house - when he first came home, when the coughing started she was transfixed and just stared at him, distressed and helpless, and he asked her not to. It's not a good way to die, but the thrombosis in the leg might kill him first. Part has broken off and blocked one lung, and if another bit does then the end game is quick. Otherwise it'll be more and more morphine.
Still in the garden, and she says the cats don't visit now. Chloe, her own cat, doesn't jump up on Nick's bed or even want to go near him, but she'd like that to change because stroking cats is... good. Kitty also has the fear. It's the suddenness of it. Three weeks ago, no-one knew anything was wrong. Nick had had a pain in the shoulder for months, possibly a couple of years. He wasn't good at going to the doctors. Turns out the pain was from a tumour pressing against the bone.
Time to leave. Back on Sunday.
-----
Comments turned off because... well... don't want anyone to feel they 'have' to comment or whatever. Or feel bad if they don't. (Or not know what to say.) This LJ entry is kind of for me.