I'll be glad when mum is out of hospital

My mother has taken the canula out of her hand twice because, she said, it was uncomfortable. The canula is necessary because staff at the hospital are feeding her antibiotics through the drip. She has responded well to antibiotics and is much more herself now, after three days in the hospital, and I think the staff are going to discharge her soon.

She is keen to go back to the nursing home. When I arrived at the hospital yesterday she was so eager to see me she almost jumped out of her chair. And later, in the afternoon, she called me on the hospital phone and asked me to get her out of there. She was very confused. I had to reassure her that she had been very ill and that being in the hospital doubtless saved her life, and that she should continue to be patient. "I have been patient all day," she told me. "You have to keep on being patient," I said to her over the phone.

My mother is obviously not a very patient person. Her urinary tract infection - which is what the staff think was the thing that made her sick in the first place - migrated to her blood, so she had urosepsis. This was why she was so weak and unlike herself initially. The antibiotics have done her wonders, and she is clearly getting back to her normal self. It takes time and care, which the hospital has provided with great skill and gentleness.

For myself, it has been quite disruptive to have mum in hospital because I have had to go and see her every day. Usually when she is in the nursing home I might go and see her every two or three days. So from my point of view the episode has been troublesome, and today I feel quite tired what with all the driving on crowded roads. Back home I have kept myself busy with more shredding and throwing out papers in the recycling room. It has been seven weeks now since I moved here and the organising of the boxes of dad's records continues. It all takes time.