Gobbledegook

18th December 2011 Sunday

They tell us that my father is refusing to eat and drink and he will need mouth care. But we watch a determined carer give him a cup of blackcurrant juice which he sucks up with a straw. She leans in close to him and asks,

‘What would you like for tea?’

He looks as if he’s reading the newspaper but without missing a beat he replies,

‘Squirrel’s liver’.

‘I don’t think we’ve got any of that,’ she says, deadpan. ‘How about some chips?’

When she’s gone I peel him a banana left by his afternoon visitors. He takes tiny mincing bites and flaps the skin in my face,

‘if you can’t tease family,’ he says,‘who can you tease?’

They called the paramedics and an ambulance to him this morning because he ‘wasn’t responding, and was talking gobbledegook’. The duty doctor examined him - blood pressure etc all OK - still bruised from his fall two days ago, probably a cracked rib, but very confused. So now he will be re-assessed by his own doctor tomorrow.

Tonight before we left and I asked my father what he was thinking about, he said,

‘the four festive horsemen.’

I’m guessing he means the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - and his feeling of death approaching.

If you listen carefully he usually makes sense - it’s just that some people confuse that with gobbledegook.