It Doesn’t Pay to be Honest

 A while ago, my Mum opened the connecting door between her home and my brother’s home, and was taken by surprise by my niece’s dog, who was visiting at the time. He’s a big dog, barely eighteen months old, and on the boisterously friendly side. Anyway, this resulted in Mum taking a bit of a step back, overbalancing and ending up on her derrière. She developed a bruise on her hip/bottom and declared that it ‘bloomin’ well hurt’ for a couple of weeks but she was okay, no bones broken etc etc. 

A while after this event, Mum went to the G.P because she’s been having increasing trouble with her hip that hasn’t been replaced. She had an X-ray and was told she had osteoarthritis and would she like to have that hip replaced? Having been on a waiting list for it to be done before - her first hip replacement was very successful - she declined because she said she was now too old to be ‘chopped about.’ Besides, when she was on the list before she’d been right royally messed about, being sent from one hospital to another, undergoing many tests which had to be repeated because the waiting list exceeded the test validity time frames, and the whole thing became too much for her to cope with. Instead, she agreed to have some physiotherapy which we thought would involve exercises to strengthen her core and leg muscles and thus support the dodgy hip more effectively.

Time went by, the cogs of the NHS raneth slowly, but eventually she got a physio appointment. However, the physiotherapist then called to cancel the appointment and didn’t say when it would be rescheduled, so Mum shrugged her shoulders, said, ‘Ah well,’ and got on with life as she does. 

The physiotherapist arrived, unannounced, last week. This threw Mum into a tizz because she doesn’t like people, especially ones she’s never met, just turning up without warning. Anyway, she let him in and then he set about asking her all sorts of random questions one of which was, ‘Do you ever fall over?’

Well, Mum told him of the episode with the dog. It’s the only time she’s taken a tumble as an older person, and to be honest, I probably would have done the same if I’d been surprised by a large, cheerful pleased-to-see-me dog. 

And the next thing you know, this physiotherapist is asking her all sorts of other questions like does she have NHS hearing aids, how often does she fall and can she read? Can she READ?? (That upset her as she is as voracious reader.) And then he takes her blood pressure, tells her it’s too high (hardly surprising) and she needs a GP appointment to assess her medication.

And THEN he insists she needs TWO walking frames (one for inside and one for outside) and they will be delivered next week. On Tuesday. Which is her shopping day. 

Well! This did not go down well, and I am not surprised. Mum told me she felt she had been put in the category of old, frail and senile, that this physiotherapist hadn’t listened to her and that he’d taken over the conversation and turned this single, accidental fall into something it wasn’t. 

‘I know I AM old,’ she said. ‘I’m 86. But I’m NOT what he was making me out to be. I fell over once.’

I can vouch that she is fully in charge of her marbles and does not fall over, unlike her older sister who has been taking regular tumbles for several years now. 

‘If they turn up with two frames, I’m going to refuse one,’ she said. ‘Where am I going to store two walking frames?’

I suggested putting them both in the garden and growing sweet peas up them.

‘And it’s such a waste of NHS resources,’ she continued. ‘I’ve got my walking stick. I’m happy with that. I don’t want stuff I don’t need.’

Quite right, Mum. 

Oh, and the physiotherapist DID leave Mum with a sheet of exercises to do but he didn’t show her how to do them or walk her through the routine which, in my mind, would have been the most useful thing to do.

Anyway, I discussed this with my brother. I said it would be ironic if she stored this unwanted frame somewhere in her not very big home and then tripped up over it. He said it would also be annoying. I said perhaps she could then sue the physiotherapist for prescribing her unwanted and dangerous equipment. 

We both agreed that, as an 86 year old, perhaps they should try listening to her and how she really feels about her health and well-being, and then bloody well back off a bit. 

I leave you with a photo of one of the flowering cherries by the canal bridge. It is currently in its full blossomy glory and it makes me feel calm just looking at it…

And Nell, who had just spotted a squirrel on the opposite bank. This did NOT make me feel calm…