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

My elder sister lives in Rugby and seems to have become the first point of contact for the hospital. Warwickshire Social Services want to meet us on Wednesday to discuss arrangements for when Mum's discharged. The snag is that the discharge can't be any time soon. From what my sister told me, Mum can no longer walk to the toilet on her own. She now needs a two-person hoist, presumably on to a commode as I'm not sure she can even sit in a wheelchair.

The longer this goes on, the more I'm afraid that Mum won't be leaving hospital at all - not alive, any way. I'm frustrated and upset. Frustrated because there's nothing I can do to help my mother, upset because I'm watching an important person in my life fade away. I'm starting to understand what my husband went through when his parents were dying of cancer.

I went to see Mum yesterday and found her awake and alert for the first time in several weeks. She said the hoist was because she had hurt her foot, although a nurse told us later that it was because she had refused to get out of bed on her own. Over the past few days Mum has been eating and drinking, so she's getting a bit stronger. She wants to go home, or to be out of the hospital at the very least. She's still a bit confused mentally. Some of the things she told us were unlikely, at best.

It's still going to be some weeks before she leaves the hospital, but I feel a lot more hopeful now than I did when I was unable to wake her last week. We'll be seeing her on Wednesday. I hope this improvement continues.