Steve's Hour of Need

Post by **SteveHopwood** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:26 pm

I arrived home from my visit to Chris in the Nursing Home to the best news of my life tonight.

Social Services have found an agency who can provide the care package Chris needs in order to come home om the 15th of this month.

No further details, so I await more tomorrow.

Fact is, the plan is for Chris to come home a week on Monday.

dudest · Post by **dudest** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 10:01 pm

Great news Steve!!!

Post by **milanese** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 10:21 pm

simply fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:!!:

Post by **Sgt.Forex** » Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:36 am

Hi Steve,
that`s absolutely great news!!!

Congratulations!

Take care!
Philipp

nonlinear · Post by **nonlinear** » Thu Sep 04, 2014 11:56 am

That's awesome, Steve; you guys have had a tough road. We are all wishing you the best.

Post by **SpiderX** » Fri Sep 05, 2014 8:43 am

Great news Steve !
All the best to you and Chris !

Cheers

bazze · Post by **bazze** » Fri Sep 05, 2014 3:54 pm

Wonderful,Steve

Post by **SteveHopwood** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 9:30 am

Chris is home.

She came home yesterday afternoon, at about 5.00 pm. It was wonderful to spend the evening with her, chatting, watching the tv and dozing. This is what you do when you have been married for over 40 years. There have been dark times when I thought we would never do so again.

Two lovely young carers came at about 21.00 to put her to bed. We bonded with them instantly; they are young and it is what we do. Chris went out like a light at about 23.00. The girls are back again only 12 hours later, and are getting her up, giving her a wash, dressing her etc. "Not a lot" was the reply to my, "How much sleep did you get last night." They look tired.

A big thing happened yesterday, that Chris and I only realised much later last night. Chris could only tolerate about 30 minutes out of bed when the care staff at the nursing home started to put her into an armchair. They gradually developed her tolerance. Over the last 3 weeks or so, they have been getting her up for breakfast, wheeling her into a lounge until lunch, and taking her to back to bed only after lunch. Chris had built her tolerance up to 5 hours.

Yesterday, the nursing home staff left her in the wheelchair all day because there was uncertainty over the exact time I could pick her up - x, y and z had to be in place first, that kind of thingy. I had no way of moving her once we got home, so Chris had to remain in the wheelchair and had been out of bed for about 13 hours by the time the carers came to put her to bed - apparently without suffering so long as I moved her legs from time to time. This is epic, fantastic, unbelievable.

Is this the same lady who remained unmoved and unconscious with more drips sticking into her than I thought it was possible for a body to host, only a few months ago? Wow.

This means I can start to address a problem that has been looming over us for some time now. We are broke. I have been papering over the financial cracks for a while now by liquidating my trading account - which was not large to start with. I shall have to do that again soon, and there will be nothing left.

I pranged my car a couple of weeks ago and it has just been taken off by the insurers repair company, who say it is a write-off. I am not surprised. The car was great mechanically, but was 9 years old with 119,000 miles on the clock. There was not a lot of damage as it was not a dramatic prang and was still drivable, but the guy who picked it up said that the torn bumper would cost over £400, and I doubt the entire car was worth that. I am waiting for figures from the insurance company, but they are not going to give me much.

Which leaves my needing to find cash to add to whatever little the insurers stump up, to buy something that is actually drivable. I don't need luxury - you don't get that in a 9 year old car with 119,000 miles on the clock. I do need something that runs. The finances will start to recover now Chris is home. The kids are back for lessons after the summer, and the school at which I teach is back in business - although that is not accessible by public transport from the middle of nowhere where we live.

I cannot borrow. I have a credit rating that would have a loan shark putting away his wallet, looking pale and shaken, and backing out of the room rapidly.

So, any of those tiny gifts that you generous people sometimes send my way would be really, really appreciated right now - pianodoodler@hotmail.com, account name Philip Hopwood. Anybody wanting 'private' EA's coding - now is the perfect time to ask. Sorry folks, but I would not ask were I not a tad on the desperate side. It would not have occurred to me to do thisTommaso suggested it. He has become a close personal friend and confidant throughout all this and knows more about me than anyone other than my wife and son, so blame him.

Chris and I will get through this. Life is never easy. We have been in an infinitely darker place than this and are so, soo, sooooo relieved to be through it. You guys have helped enormously. Having the encouragement and support of so many people she did not know helped Chris a lot, lot, lot.

:!!:

Chris is home. :!!:

Post by **SpiderX** » Tue Sep 23, 2014 1:39 pm

Great news Steve !
Thought i bump this up to give it the attention it deserves.

Cheers

Post by **SteveHopwood** » Tue Sep 23, 2014 10:32 pm

SpiderX » Tue Sep 23, 2014 1:39 pm wrote:Great news Steve !
Thought i bump this up to give it the attention it deserves.

Cheers

Thanks spi. Much appreciated.

It is absolutely fantastic to have Chris home again. All those months that I hoped this would happen and yet dreaded that it would not, I had no inkling of how good it would feel when it happened.

Let's try to give you all some insight into my feelings.

It was not quite love at first sight when we met all those years ago. Chris was a member of a student Gilbert and Sullivan society. One of their leading members was a fellow student of mine at music college and he asked me to become the rehearsal pianist for them.

I was 21. Chris was 18. She is an elfin little thing, and aged 18 looked about 14. We were out at a concert performance of the production for the year and I saw her sitting reading during the interval. Bearing in mind that I am an anti-social git who regards parties as a form of torture, what happened next is amazing.

I wandered over and asked Chris what she was reading. I actually walked up to a complete stranger and talked to her. Wow. I digress. She was reading something or other by Charles Dickens, which impressed the hell out of me because I have never been able to make any sense of his writing. Some of you will be aware that I hate long paragraphs, and CD writes opening sentences that do not pause for breath until the middle of page 2.

So we chatted. I became more and more attracted. And less and less comfortable. Was I really becoming attracted to a 14 year old? Eventually I could stand it no longer, and with the sensitivity a brick shows a plate glass window, I asked how old she was. The echo of my sigh of relief following her reply is probably still reverberating around Manchester over 40 years later.

It turned out that Chris had been attracted to me from the first moment I arrived on the scene - how deluded can a girl get? Never mind. The rest is history.

So, I am currently counting having Chris back home as the best thingy ever yet. Ok, so marrying her in the first place and then the birth of our son runs this a pretty close second, but they do come second.

It has not all been plain sailing mind. Sometime soon I will tell you the story of my misunderstanding the laxative medication instructions. You will enjoy it but be warned; the result of the episode was quite brown.