So….let’s recap since my post of 3 December. Shaun has a biliary drainage tube draining bile from his liver currently and a second one is being inserted today as the portal for the first one is either playing up, blocked, or no more bile can come out of that area of the liver
So today he undergoes another surgical procedure to insert a second drainage tube. When bile is drained, and tubes are eventually cut off and stents put in the bile ducts instead to keep them open, then Shaun can come home but this is weeks away, probably after Christmas now due to blockages, infections, and so on happening….his best place to be is in the hospital. Intravenous drugs are marvelous….I can’t provide the same IV drugs at home so in the hospital he stays currently. He has been moved three times to different rooms! Now currently in room 418 where he will probably stay.
Shaun has been a busy boy – he is selling his real estate business to Avram Deitch; along with the girls who will keep working for Avram; he has updated his Will and had Avram, Iain Taylor, Joe Snee (Regional Manager) and Tim Mordaunt (Property Brokers ex Principal/since retired) in for an overall meeting on how his business structure should be taken over. Infections come and go for him, Shaun’s temperature rises and falls, antibiotics are regularly given and the various other medications and drugs on a regular basis. His mind is incredibly alert through all of this.
Its been a routine of 2-3 hours at the hospital every morning and again every night.
I have organised Justin Bray to deal with the drenching and dagging of the lambs; I have online groceries ordered, I had meticulous maids come and do a full clean, Heather to do some gardening. Things will keep ticking over at home because they have to. Jesse and friends cleaned out the new shed for Shaun; and we did a clean out of some of the pump shed. There is more cleaning and sorting to do….if anything a diagnosis like this ones pumps you into action to tidy things up around the property.
Sadly there has been a noticeable lack of support from my biological family (mother, sister) who weren’t going to even come up until after Christmas, but other people have been great, Len and Pam and Lisa this week visiting, Property Brokers staff visiting, Toastmasters peole visiting. Sometimes I have to wonder about my family…..I just….my husband is terminal and they still have to be dragged to Hawke’s Bay and its only 2.5 hours from the Manawatu. After some cajolling that they might not see Shaun again if they don’t come up prior to Christmas, my sister is begrudgingly coming up (I think) next week with my niece Ella. I doubt my mother will come up still…. she doesn’t like people’s driving. She doesn’t like being in lifts (Shaun is on the 4th floor of the hospital) and can’t go up the stairs anymore. The bottom line is she is 82 years old and doesn’t go further than Feilding at the most. My 82 year old auntie is more mobile in the sense that she drives further and comes to Hawkes Bay on other occasions….but even she doesn’t appear to want to come up. To be honest, I haven’t understood this at all a lack of empathy…. I have no other immediate biological family and its quite sad that they show this type of attitude that even though my husband is terminal and wants to see people, they still won’t drive the 2.5 hours to Hawke’s Bay to see him! (when my sister will do this any other time of the year no problem at all – so long as its on her terms).
Enough about that, I give up on that aspect right now….I feel embarrassed and sad for Shaun that my own family are behaving like that. But such is life. If they don’t see him again alive when they had the chance to, then that is their loss that they will have to live with.
I feel angry and sad and emotions are up and down and up and down. Let’s see what further days bring….
