OF MICE & MEN

Blue Boy Drops In

I know I have spoken with many of you about my mum, her foibles and her very unusual and somewhat abrasive personality. I don’t know if I have ever however, explained her courage. She had to be one of the bravest people I have ever known. She sailed into this treatment with high hopes and amazing stamina for a woman her age.

When she was admitted to hospital the following Tuesday, we expected she would only be there a couple of days and then be sent home prior to returning shortly to commence treatment. Instead, they kept her there and commenced treatment pretty well immediately. The first treatment involved chemo to the site and steroid medication. The immediate results were totally dramatic. The lump disappeared literally overnight! All signs were super positive. After spending a week in hospital mum was sent home. The plan was 6 lots of chemo all 21 days apart. I have to say, they gave us very limited information as to what to expect. A few brochures and not much else; I had spent quite a lot of time at the hospital with mum, but nobody had bothered to fill me in on anything of real value regards what would predictably happen next.

Butchy checking us out

We picked mum up from the hospital late in the day, having been told to pick her up around 3ish only then to have to wait for another couple of hours for meds. The woman we picked up was a very different one to the one we had taken to the hospital some 7 days earlier. For one thing, Mum had never really been exposed to anyone who had a truly rough trot, either medically or any other way. Being a public hospital, the cancer ward where she had been staying had been full of women who were literally on their last legs. Full too of family members trying to spend what little time was left with their loved ones. Mother, to put it mildly, came away a bit shell shocked. I have to confess to being pretty peeved with her that evening as she harped on about all the awful people she had encountered in during the course of her stay. I was upset about her lack of human compassion. She had never really, until then, suffered any real ill health, nor any real awfulness in her life. Sure, her childhood had left a great deal to recommend it, but from that point on, she had pretty much cruised. When bad things popped into her life, she popped her head in the sand, or better still, into a glass of wine or beer. She had really been quite sheltered. I have to say that over the next couple of months she did respond much more kindly to the problems of others. I think a great deal of introspection opened up a whole lot of new ground for mum at that point in time.

BB (Big Beak) looking for a handout

During Mum’s first hospital visit, we stayed at her place. We pretty much had to as someone had to look after Sparky (the manic Wombat) who was so very accustomed to mum’s routines we couldn’t really take him up to the farm with us. In addition to my reservations as to the wisdom of taking Sparks up to the farm, Mum really didn’t want us to do that. She really wanted us to do just what we did, stay at her place looking after Sparks. Folks it wasn’t easy. We bought mum a big sofa-bed before we travelled, partly so she could have a lay down during the day (she would never lay on her bed during the day) and partly so we would have a bed if we had to return home suddenly. Well, who on earth designed these torture devices? It was diabolically uncomfortable on that contraption. The level of comfort was not abetted by the fact that DD point blank refused to remove the plastic cover from the mattress! Why? Who knows! Anyway, there was a fair degree of discomfort, but we managed. By the time Mum came home the first time, we had enough of that bloody bed and when she insisted we go home and leave her we were pretty pleased to do so. It was quite late that night when we took Mum home. She was exhausted, as were we and she insisted that she wanted to be alone, having had to put up with “all those awful people at the hospital” – I suppose I didn’t take a great deal of convincing, a – I was a bit disappointed with Mum’s behaviour and b – I was really needing a good night’s sleep on my own bed. With great guilt we drove to the farm that night, leaving my diminutive and unwell mother on her own. She was fine. I was back first thing next morning and spent the day with her, trying to tempt her to eat a little and generally keeping her company.

Now Don't Be a Galah

That pretty well established the pattern for the next couple of months. Mum had a total of 3 lots of chemo. After that first time tho’, we did stay at the farm overnight, heading down to mum’s early each morning to feed the wombat. Poor old Sparks, we stayed there every day just to be with him, leaving each afternoon after 4 and returning each morning around 8.30. Amazing what we will do for a dog! Anyway, as I said before, we really couldn’t take him to the farm, so not much choice.

Enjoying a Few Rays

While mum was in hospital, I tried to do a bit of cleaning out for her. You need to know here that she would never allow me to do that sort of thing while she was there, and indeed, up until that point in time, would never have allowed me to investigate her stuff in her absence either. I must admit, I didn’t warn her I was going to embark on a ‘spring clean’ for her, I simply started to ‘chuck stuff out’! My Mum never, but never, threw anything away. I cannot even begin to tell you the things she had accumulated over the years. Right down to all the bills over the past 10 years since my father died. Mum was afraid of identity theft and so was not prepared to put anything in the bin unless it was destroyed first – as she never managed to get around to ‘the destroying’, everything was preserved.

Just Where is New Hollland?

During my ‘cleaning’ exercise I experienced a peculiar thrill one day. I was cleaning out a drawer beneath the TV. I had been in this drawer previously on several occasions looking for sticky tape, envelopes and general thingies. Well my dears, imagine my surprise when amongst all the stuff I spied what looked like a rubber skeleton of a small animal, you know, the sort you buy the kids at the $2 shops. Not A Rubber Skeleton at all! Rather, an entire intact skeleton of a very real mouse! I was fairly un-thrilled at my discovery and very gingerly removed said dead rodent. Some years back Mum had a mouse plague of sorts. Mobs of the determined small creatures gravitated to her place from the railway reserve across the road. Their inroads into the house were probably aided and abetted by the fact that mum was very much inclined to leave the back sliding door open for Sparky – not being prepared to have a dog door installed due perceived security issues. I know, sounds Irish to me too, but there you have it. As much as I am against baiting, eventually in desperation, she did absolutely fill every conceivable nook and cranny with Rat Poison. This did finally pretty much solve the problem, although during the thick of the battle, one was prone to find small carcasses lying in the middle of the room from time to time. Sparks had enough brains not to touch the small poisoned beasts and Mum had no sense of smell, so she was never aware of their presence. Sparks would try to tell her by slinking around the corpses in a Strange and Mysterious Manner, but generally due to all the above and her poor sense of sight she was sublimely unaware of the little deaths.

Can you see me - down on the fence wire?

Every so often when we visited I would comment on an unpleasant odour and we would search, usually in vain for the culprit. One such event was most likely prompted by the death of the ‘drawer mouse’. When I mentioned my grisly find to Mother, her reasonably dumbfounding (and scary) response, was; “Oh well – if that upset you, I wouldn’t clean out the drawer beneath the little china cabinet then!” At my startled look, she continued “I know there is a dead one in there, I sprayed it with fly-spray!” Oh joy! Not only did I have that to look forward to (she wouldn’t let me do it while she was present), but we had reasonably frequently used the plates in that cabinet to eat from. Oh well, I suppose we all survived. When I did finally manage to get to that particular drawer, I discovered not a skeleton but an enormous ball of grey fluff. The poor little thing had actually been making a nest in the drawer, using mum’s old diaries etc for its bedding. Sadly, the books which recorded many of mum’s early poetry and thoughts were much the worse for wear. Hopefully I will be able to preserve at least some of the stuff therein – mind you I am not looking forward to handling the things knowing their recent history.

Multi Cultural Bathing

NB Hope you enjoy the birds of Bullsbrook!