h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Waste of a Day

Exhaustion. Sleep deprivation. That sense that your IQ is slowly dripping out of both ears, like candle wax. The mood is dull, enthusiasm absent.

I spent almost four hours this morning, jiggering about with a render (3D image project) that should have taken a quarter of that. And in the end I couldn't even finish because the nurse ordered me to change position. And that meant giving up the big laptop and switching to the netbook, which doesn't do graphics.

As I mentioned in comments yesterday, E's condition improved last night, which meant that she groped for the remote control, turned the telly back on and berated the first aide who came into her room. "I told you, don't ever touch my television!" And then she ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I am deeply conflicted by my irritation at her assumption that the world must defer to her whims because she is dying. We're supposed to be nice to people who are dying. Aren't we? Even convicted murderers get last meals. This is the same kind of torn feeling I had about my step-father when I was his care-giver, something I know that others have felt as an aged relative's impending demise throws restrictive hoops around their own lives. You wish they'd get on with it and set you free, and then you feel terrible and guilty for even thinking that.

There must be some deep underlying superstition here, to presume that being pissed off with a dying woman will somehow hasten her death, so that, on top of being tired to my soul today, I'd have to muster up some remorse for my evil thoughts if she actually died. Magical thinking.

When someone is dying in a nursing home, unresponsive and breathing irregularly, the routine on the hall and in the building continues, as it must for the 115 others who are healing or subsisting. There are other televisions, announcements on the PA system, bursts of laughter from a cluster of aides at the nursing station. Carts and trashcans are trundling up and down the hall. A baby is crying, a floor polisher is making floor polisher noises. If it were me, I think I would like to be able to hear the world going about its business, not be isolated by the false cheer of a rerun sitcom.

Well, if I can stay awake till ten, I'll probably sleep despite that wretched little box, and feel better tomorrow, and make art, and joke with the aides, and write a better journal.

I do hope you feel better tomorrow Asteroid lil.

I have a 'sort of funny' experience that your story made me think about just now. When Keith's dad was in his latter stages of Parkinson's, his nursing home phoned, and said we should attend immediately as it looked very likely that the old man would not last more than a couple of hours.

So we threw ourselves into the car and drove like maniacs down the motorway, where we were gathered round the bedside of a semi-conscious, hard-breathing, grey-looking, shrunken figure. After about 20 minutes, he asked for a cup of tea. Another hour later he ate some lunch.

After that, he asked to get up, and be taken outside in his chair, for a stroll round the garden. When we left he was choosing dinner.

While Keith was relieved it wasn't the end, we both sort of knew we'd be back to repeat this scenario. But when it did occur, we managed to grab a change of clothes and overnight stuff. We'd had a practice run you see.

Yes, exactly. I'd taken dad to the emergency room a couple of times but, on the weekend he died, I was thinking, oh, he'll pull through this like he always does.

Thank you for this. It's not a waste of a day if what you have written makes people think.

I hope you get some sleep.

[Amy P]

This journal isn't a bad one, it's just as fascinating and thought-provoking as the others in this series of yours.

I hope you find tomorrow better, though.

Deb

As others have said, hope you can manage to sleep well tnight... Everything I find is like snorkling through recle, when its occuring to a backdrop of sleep deprivation

I hope you had a good night's sleep Lil - sleep deprivation can be quite devastating