=SIGHS=

As it turns out, Operation Give The Grandmama A New Hip has been postponed for the time being.
     'Postponed', that is, as in 'cancelled'.

You read right.
     The hospital have cancelled her operation due to a lack of beds; something that is not of course their fault - sh...er...stuff, happens, right? - and we are now back on the waiting list, awaiting the arrival of a new letter with a new date.
     All well and good. As I said, that isn't the fault of the hospital that there aren't enough beds and emergencies have to be dealt with first, obviously.

It's just...we'd all nerved ourselves up, y'know? Grandmama especially.
     And we'd all been running round arranging things to help Grandmama to get ready - which had been going on for weeks and weeks. It's not a case of being admitted, signing your consent form, having a good wash and (if needed) shaving the appropriate area along with a quick blood test (again if needed) anymore; oh no. There are a myriad of "pre-admittance procedures" to contend with now - which was very stressful for her because she hates being a burden to anybody.
     To make it worse, for the past week Grandmama has had to wash every inch of herself in this horrible smelling special prescription soap and then thoroughly dry every inch of herself afterwards - this for a woman in her mid eighties, who is immobile enough now that she has to sit down to take a shower, and previously had dried herself by the method of wrapping up in a bathrobe and lying down on the bed to allow nature to take its course, Cue me spending the first half of my holiday at her flat to help out - and then wash every towel/flannel etc. used along with single item of clothing worn the previous day, and then from Monday onward she was  barred from going out except to her prearranged hospital appointment for yet another blood test - which had to be done twice on two different days anyway, because a mistake had been made in her notes - lest she come into contact with an infected person, and she couldn't be around the dog, which made arranging the time I spent at her flat helping with washing and fetching and filing (don't ask) very difficult - because Mother already had work booked and you cannot leave a nearly eleven year old dog without access to somewhere to piddle for ten hours plus - and then to top it all; she wasn't allowed to take her usual half sleeping tablet or have her usual little drink the night before due to the operation being booked for 7-AM.
     And then, at the last moment, postponement, which was expected, because (yet again) stuff happens, and finally, hours later (after Grandmama had been without food for almost 10 hours and without water for 6), cancellation, which hadn't been expected by anybody.

I mean, it's bad, isn't it?
     To mess someone about like that, no matter who or what is at fault, is bad; particularly somebody that is vulnerable, which despite her strength of character my Grandmama certainly now is.
     Poor Grandmama.
     She's been putting herself out in one way or another for almost a year now (the terribly 'urgent' cases have a deadline of 12 months, apparently, rather than the usual 24) and now she just feels utterly flat and depressed.
     It's taken a long time for the pain to become desperate enough that she would even consider an operation at all - terrified of the idea of it as she is - and once she did, she obeyed all of the rules handed out to her (silly, uncomfortable and/or inconvenient as many of them were) and put up with being shunted from doctor to doctor and poked and prodded and asked questions of a most embarrassing and personal (and unfortunately, necessary) nature, and then there was all that hoo-haa with the soap and not being allowed to do this or eat that or drink the other and then she was under house arrest for three days and then got up at hell-O'clock in the morning after a bad night's sleep minus her usual tablet and nip of brandy (and it really is a 'nip'. In a pub if you were served the thimbleful that my aged grandparent guzzles as a 'single', you would be justifiably revolted), and now it is all off and she has to wait for the whole thing to begin all over again.

And I know it's not the fault of any individual person or of the hospital; they're doing the best they can under the crap circumstances the government have put them in, and there's no use being angry about it and that this is just the way it is, but - AARRGGHH!
     I am just so fed up and tired and pissed off.
     We - all of us - are.

Anyway, that's it. Rant over.
     I just needed to get it all out, and now I have, so there t'is.

As a nice silver lining to the cancellation; Grandmama is alive and - mostly - well and the thing we have all been having nightmares about - no matter how unlikely everyone keeps saying it is - hasn't come to pass.

Plus, tonight there shall be good company, a trashy horror film, and wine, so; yay.

Alice x