A temporary addition to our family.

People go in to hospital to ‘have an operation’ but they come out after ’having a procedure’ – these are things you learn as a concerned relative. My mother had an eventful time with her health for a couple of years and thankfully the wonders of modern science did their thing, and they truly are wonderful.

After a bowel resection (a.k.a. major road works) Mum was fitted with a temporary colostomy bag (a.k.a. a traffic diversion to allow the ‘road’ to heal). These procedures are undoubtedly fantastic but not without their problems and adjustments. The instructions regarding attaching and changing the colostomy bag were given to my very unwell, sufficiently medicated, partially immobile mother days after the operation – I’m sure she though there was some instruction book that came with the bags that could be read at a later stage. There isn’t. Training is short with no repeats. Just think how long it took you to learn how to tie your laces! My mother is not a very dexterous person, arthritis and logic play their part (Hoover bags have rarely been conquered) and working on your own self is never easy at the best of times, you don't have enough hands, boobs get in the way, everything is upside down etc etc. Following a few hiccups Mum was discharged from hospital without her staples, with an open wound that needed to be dressed daily due to infection, a new colostomy bag to deal with and general anaesthetic to recover from. Then the games began...

As a nurse I would be much less inclined to tea and sympathy and lean more towards good food and strong action. Any nursing 'skills' I have came from minding horses, where the main aim is developing the true knack of bandages and poultices that remain in place overnight; these proved very useful skills, though I’m sure Mum would have preferred more sympathy!
The district nurses would come every third day and I did the dressings in between. The colostomy bag and wound site were about 2 inches apart, way too close for anyones comfort. The wound was to be packed with special gauze so it would heal from the inside out, and dressing kits were left for me to use. The first time I did the dressings I opened out the kit and lay out all the necessary parts – I didn’t have a nurse beside me to pass me tools or mop my brow and so needed to be prepared. I did have my very large long haired dog beneath my feet, for moral support and our old cat was dozing on the bed beside mum. I was all set to begin, I’d been watching the nurse closely and I had just started to peel away the old dressings with the disposable plastic tweezers when Mum asked if I should put on the gloves for hygiene, I looked from the dog to the cat and thought it a moot point!

Mum would mostly face the wall during any nursing activities, like myself I don’t think Mum would be the cowboy type biting a stick with a slug of whiskey during an operation; it wouldn’t be the pain that would get to her just the thought of what they were doing. But she slowly grew more confident – I even brought in a mirror to show her the wound once - it was around fourteen inches long, and after the shock of seeing it things were going well in our daily routine.
Once I was 'mid dressing' when apparently I said something funny. Mum laughed and in the midst of a unmoving tummy the inner workings of my mothers’ bowels jiggled around in mirth, I paled and the laughing stopped immediately... ”What’s wrong? Is the wound okay?”. “The wound is fine, just don’t laugh it’s very distracting”. Would I ever be able to explain to a district nurse how I accidentally puked into an open wound?!

Colostomy bags are not endearing though wonderfully functional. It required fashion adjustments, some forward planning and it farted without warning, Mum would clutch her little bag and say excuse me as if there was a rude mouse in her pocket. Though a charcoal filter was provided on each bag no soundproofing was fitted, a future addition perhaps? The Internet proved very helpful; the anonymity of the web puts people at ease to discuss the most basic of human functions in the most amazing and sometimes horrific detail.

Humour makes my family what it is and if we can laugh about it we can get a handle on it. Mum only had her colostomy bag for 6 months and it was her appendage she was the butt of all the jokes but sometimes, and only sometimes, we were sympathetic and understanding. Mum woke me once at 4am to help her change the dressing on the wound as the colostomy had burst ‘a bit’. With being pregnant and faeces there is no such thing as a bit.

I was woken in the middle of the night again this time by Dad having a not so silent fight with himself in the bathroom. The muttered swear words came through the walls quite easily and I though the plumbing was acting up, we had moody plumbing. Eventually the argument ceased and he went to bed and I went back to sleep.
In the morning Dad politely asked Mum if she would clean up the ‘accident’ in the bathroom that he had stood in last night, he presumed a leaky bag was at fault. The shit really hit the fan then, the accident had been the cats and Mum was furiously indignant at being blamed. It’s still a sore point between them.

Transport. A necessary evil...

Most of us have had a tricky car at some stage in our lives. You know the ones with a personality and moods (and temper tantrums!). I had a very leaky car for a while but it had excellent drainage; a friends car used to need occasional hot wiring she was very good at it, I never asked where she learned this skill. Another friend had trouble with headlights, a jolt from a pot-hole would make them go off, but they came back on with the next pot-hole - practised patience, strong bowels and gumption were required for any form of speed at night - those second pot-holes were not always easy to find in the dark!

One that stands out in my mind was a short lived car of my Dads, it wouldn’t start very well, went like the clappers, with the odd back-fire, braking optional and only locked on one side so needed to be parked against walls. Lateral thinking caused my Dad to build a ramp up which he would reverse when he returned home for the evening – a starting ramp if you wish and on many occasions he got enough of a run so the car would start. One time I was woken early and asked to help start the car, it didn't get enough of a run, unfavourable wind conditions perhaps? – I was given the option of pushing a heavy old car with my eighteen stone Dad in it or attempting to start it while he pushed it; he was a heavy smoker at the time and I a very novice driver. I said I'd rather be a cripple than an orphan so I pushed him, a vision in my nightie I'm sure.

I was being dropped in to town to meet a friend in this same car and asked if they would drop me a distance away to avoid being seen in the car. I wasn't easliy embarassed but this car was special, very special. I went and met my friend and little while later we were doing a bit of clothes shopping when a very loud bang occurred outside, my friend, ever the alarmist, asked “My God, has someone been shot?” I said “I doubt it” as I studiously ignored my parents glide by the shop window in the back-firing beast.