Week 12: Bad News Comes in Fours

It’s been a really rough week. I’m feeling pretty useless and helpless.

My grandad is very likely on his deathbed with what looks like pneumonia. He’s still at home because taking someone as frail as him to a COVID-ridden hospital is probably a death sentence. Mum’s staying there for the foreseeable future to help out, and they have lots of carers attending throughout the day. I’m kind of mentally prepared for the worst, and there’s now a DNR in place

My grandma collapsed within half an hour of my mum arriving to help out. She’s been in bed since and is sick. Paramedics think it’s exhaustion – for a woman in her 80s she’s been doing far too much care work for my grandad as she doesn’t want to lose their independence. I really hope she’s OK and it’s not something more serious.

So my poor mum is now stuck at my grandparents looking after them. Normally you can rely on my two uncles to help out in this kind of situation, but (and you can’t make this up) an hour or so after the paramedics left my mum got a call to say that one of my uncles has had a positive COVID test and so has to self-isolate. Half an hour after that, my second uncle called to say the same thing.

To top off the week, I got a call on Friday about a trial. I’ve been called as a witness, and this was supposed to happen last year but it got postponed. My ideal scenario is that I never have to think about this again, but it looks like I’m going to have to travel back and forth from Luton during the lockdown and give evidence on something I’d rather forget.

I’m going to be OK, it’s just a lot all at once.