{"id":3377,"date":"2024-11-13T16:22:29","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T16:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.janelaverick.com\/?p=3377"},"modified":"2024-11-13T16:22:29","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T16:22:29","slug":"everything-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janelaverick.com\/?p=3377","title":{"rendered":"Everything, everywhere…."},"content":{"rendered":"

How much easier it would be if untoward happenings formed an orderly queue and occurred one at a time with a nice space for recovery in the middle.<\/font><\/p>\n

The lack of postings hasn\u2019t been about me for a change.  The mother of the D.I.L had had such poor health, through no fault of her own, that her kidneys have been failing for some years.  The D.I.L. decided to donate a kidney to her mother, which is about as altruistic as you can get.  Many tests in various locations ensued, the D.I.L\u2019s sister joined in and was tested, but not a match, other family members felt unable to participate, so one way and another it was the D.I.L who was going to be the one.<\/font><\/p>\n

Donating a kidney turned out to be one of those vague \u2018heard it on the news\u2019 sorts of things that you don\u2019t expect to know someone who has actually done it.  Amazingly when I mentioned it to my hairdresser, her brother had done it for a family member.  She said it had taken him two years to recover fully, she also murmured that her children were under strict instructions not to donate anything to their father, her Ex, who was welcome just to go off and die in a field whenever he liked, as far as she was concerned.<\/font><\/p>\n

Knowing it will happen and the actual event are two very different things.  Although the testing had taken place in a different part of the country, the actual transplant surgery was taking place at a huge hospital, a centre of excellence with all the equipment and the surgeons to do the job, only a few miles away from me.  This hospital, however,  is two hours drive from where the S&H and the D.I.L live.  I have always been released from hospital on the day stated but the hour could be absolutely anything, depending on ward rounds, pharmacists and paperwork.  Therefore I offered for myself and the OH to collect the D.I.L post surgery and bring her here until such time as the S&H could come and get her, making allowances for children and schooltime and time off work.  Although the S&H demurred, in the end his work, from which he is being let go just before Christmas, so the shareholders can get a nice pre-holiday bonus when the firm is bought out in a rush, would only let him have half a day off.  That\u2019s half a day to collect his wife who had just saved a life by donating a body part that she was actually using.<\/font><\/p>\n

Well it\u2019s all about what is handy for the shareholders, isn\u2019t it?<\/font><\/p>\n

So we collected her in the afternoon and brought her here.  She sat on the settee and debriefed herself, until she came over all wobbly, so I helped her up to bed, in the lift (I am so glad I have a lift, sometimes it gives you such a lift.).<\/font><\/p>\n

The following day, as soon as the children had gone to school, the S&H set off, arriving mid-morning.  He found he had a wife still, which was quite a relief, although his hands are covered in a stress rash, unsurprisingly, and as soon as she was loaded into the car he set off for home again.<\/font><\/p>\n

Throughout the OH was snappy and my guts played up.  Stress and responsibility can get to you as you age because you just aren\u2019t as strong even as a bystander, as you were when you were young.<\/font><\/p>\n

It is unsurprisingly difficult when life occurs to family members.  My mother always used to say, occasionally when she had been the agent of illness, that she would happily go through it for me. I\u2019m glad she never did, in retrospect, because when she was eventually ill herself, she was like everything that was bad about the middle ages embodied in the one enraged old woman. I recall my father-in-law, arriving to be cared for after his wife died, upon being told that I had cancer, turning and walking off saying he didn\u2019t want to know that.  That may have been a more honest response.  The fact is that when awful things happen to people close to you, how you react is sometimes a surprise even to yourself.<\/font><\/p>\n

I tried to provide what was needed, step back from the OH being stroppy, though with me, not the D.I.L.  To recognise panic in another.  Not to smother the D.I.L and to take the opportunity to be wise and kind.  I would have to say all my recent hospital stays and  surgeries were a great help in the matter of when to assist and feed and when to go away and give space.<\/font><\/p>\n

Most of all, I just don\u2019t know how nurses do it.  How do nurses do it? How can you lovingly, professionally, care for someone you aren\u2019t even related to?  Not just how could you do it, but why?<\/font><\/p>\n

Well that is the first hurdle over.  Now we have to hope the transplant takes for the recipient, that the brave donor will recover well without any setbacks and that the S&H will find a job that will pay the bills.  I gave him his Christmas present which was the money for a new shower, a couple of months ago, which he is now saving in case they need to eat it.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

So fingers, toes and eyes crossed that the long range outcome is good.<\/font><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been able to make anything for ages but found myself making a card today, so maybe I have breathed out a bit.<\/font><\/p>\n

Yet I compare our lives and problems with those in war-torn parts of the world.  How do people go through those experiences and survive?<\/font><\/p>\n

Maybe the learning we take from this is to enjoy today if it is calm and reasonable.<\/font><\/p>\n

Tomorrow could turn out to be everything, everywhere, happening all at once.<\/font><\/p>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


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How much easier it would be if untoward happenings formed an orderly queue and occurred one at a time with a nice space for recovery in the middle. The lack of postings hasn\u2019t been about me for a change.  The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1117,1116],"class_list":["post-3377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-artists","tag-kidney-transplants","tag-problems-in-families"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t