Hands And In The Hospital

Hands on the table- my great nephew and niece - making things, cutting things, imagining things -  bricks, snakes, the Great Wall of China. Helping hands from father and uncle. Mine feeding Robin a carrot cake - full of nuts so he shouldn't really eat it - in a rainy Glastonbury on Saturday.

Tonight I'm Robin's hands in the hospital. While he lies on the bed, pillow raised, the IV drip from the machine beside him seeps into his vein drop by drop. I prop the iPad up on the table slotted across the bed and he tells me which number to touch on the Sudoku grid, which card to choose in the solitaire game. It's slow because he can't get the words out and I'm not as quick as he is to see the solution.

We were asked to come to the hospital at 1pm as the bed was available. But there was a hitch, the side ward he was given had to be deep cleaned. We walked the corridors,  I had to stop him going into every ward,  in the canteen he drank coke and ate a nectarine yoghurt. My appetite was nil. Finally we got in to the room - for which I'm so grateful  - at past 3.30pm.  

I left  him at 5pm still waiting for the treatment to be set up and returned at 6.30pm.  He'd had supper - not much -  and I tuned the radio to radio 3 for him. He wanted to walk but  the nurse persuaded him it wasn't a good idea with the IV drip. I left him again at 8.15. Home again by 9pm with a bag of supper from Waitrose.

And now I have the big quiet of the house to myself.  Three more nights to come. Loving it.