The Great X offers to help

Ann has allowed me to take over her special room. This is her sanctuary, into which no-one is permitted without special and rare permission. It contains her private things, with their special meaning for place, time, or person, and is the place to which she retreats to be alone, or to recover her spirituality. Now she has put me in here to nurse. All week, she has worked tirelessly to support me, physically, mentally and medically.

The Moroccan Lamp in Ann's Room

She is having to do so many extra jobs now, for while still preparing meals, getting shopping in, cleaning, and making drinks, she has the additional burdon of jobs I used to help with: sorting the rubbish, washing up and emptying the dish washer, and cleaning the house of dog hairs and the garden of their mess. All the pain and swelling on her head where she fell and hit the pavement, with her yet broken and deformed hand still prevent driving, so she has to ask MA to take her to Clare for her hair, or to sort out ordering more catheter bags from the chemist.



This afternoon, we had a card from the Great X, covered in pink blossom and well wishes, with a message that, "she was so sorry she didn't live nearer, for she would love to help."

The Great X is a nurse who worked in a hospice, and is at her best with these cases of high dependency. She is brusk and efficient, and indifferent to medical mess. Ann said, "would you like her to come down?" Edwin offered to pick her up from the station, and MA said, "you'd love her to come. She'd be really good at looking after you."

I shuddered a little, and said I agreed that she would be very good, but I thought it might not be appropriate, and I didn't really want her fiddling with me down below.

Then the doorbell rang, and our young granddaughter, who'd been silently listening, said, "That's her; the Great X has arrived!"