A Bedtime Battle

"Just close your eyes and go to sleep"

"I'm not tired"

"Look, it's been a long, long day and there's a lot to be done tomorrow"

"Look at that bug crawling across the ceiling. Can you not see it?"

"It's late. Go. To. Sleep."

"I told you, I'm not tired"

"Just close your eyes, and try to go to sleep".

"I'm..........still............not............"


And with that she fell into what looked like a restful slumber. I probably had dozens of bedtime battles like this with my daughter over the years, as my mother probably had with me fifty-odd years ago.

But this was the here and now, and it was me imploring my 85 year old mother to rest her shattered body and confused mind. Dosed-up with morphine, her broken left arm immobilised by a surgical brace and her left hip a dizzying array of bone fragments visible only to the prying eyes of the x-ray machine.

I smiled at the role-reversal.

The morphine - while nullifying the pain of her injuries - had demanded the modest fee of minor hallucinations. Sadly no elephants on unicycles, just some benign bugs walking across the ceiling.

Her death certificate says "multiple organ failure" resulting from a "mechanical fall". My ostensibly healthy 85 year old Mum went - in the space of 25 hours - from preparing her evening meal to dying. All because her slippers caught on the kitchen floor and sent her crashing to the ground.

It's difficult to process when it's written down like that. "I fell" is usually the refrain of the child and accompanied by tears and snotters. It's usually treated by a hanky to a grazed knee and a kiss to make it better.

But it killed my Mum.

The utter brilliance of the NHS was breathtaking. The 999 call was followed within 10 minutes by the arrival of an ambulance. The paramedics' professionalism in quickly and effectively treating her immediate physical needs was mirrored by their utter brilliance in calming the atmosphere and soothing the panic of the uninjured. A second ambulance soon followed in order to expedite Mum's mechanical stabilisation and evacuation; all the while, apologies from the patient for being stupid and ruining everyone's night.

A couple of hours or so in A&E, with a CT scan clearly pointing to hip surgery within 48 hours and subsequent months of recuperation. Coupled with a broken arm, the medium term future for Mum was going to be her worst nightmare. Even if she did manage to return home, she was going to need personal help with everything from food prep to you-know-what. Now was most defintely not the time to share with her her prognosis.

Eventually we were admitted to a ward - sitting with her for a further couple of hours. It was here that we had the bedtime-battle, good-natured and clearly an opportunity for her to gently wind me up.

But, thankfully she fell asleep.

Arriving home at 2:30am - getting a reasonable four or five hours sleep - the morning call to "come to the hospital as soon as you can" was like a thunderbolt. She had deteriorated overnight and - although still very much alive - was not responding to verbal stimuli.

The day progressed. Further diagnostics revealing intestinal stalling. Blood pressure inexorably falling. Heart rate rising in an attempt to maintain blood-oxygen levels. Kidneys not playing ball.

Lunchtime saw admission to ICU and the administering of meds to artificially sort the blood-pressure issue. But to no avail. By 4pm it became clear that we were about to watch my mother die.

It's been said that everyone dies alone, but thankfully not my Mum. As we sat around her bed we chatted about normal stuff : about her granddaughter's upcoming wedding; about work; about the weather. And as she drifted off, as her breathing became shallower and her pulse grew weaker I hope and I think that she felt everything was "normal". No fear; no panic. Just peace.

"Night, night. Don't let the..........?"

"........bed bugs bite".