Flaming orange Pre-Raphaelite colour and black Malevitch square

Once upon a time ... I blogged regularly - almost daily. Once upon a time ... I could see properly. Once upon a time ... there was a Little Family. Once upon a time...

I see that it has been almost six months since I wrote an entry to this blog. I would like to resume this activity to rule at least one thing from my list of "Once upon a time". So let me explain briefly why I stopped and what has happened since November.

You may remember that my Elder Girl was diagnosed epileptic last October. In November, our doctor thought that she needed to have her treatment adapted to her condition under medical care, while I would have some respite by myself. The Girls were sent to the nearest cottage hospital for two weeks and I stayed at home.

It proved disastrous for all of us.

Was it relief, after looking after them for so long? I stayed in bed in the completely closed house, in the dark, and slept. I do not remember much. I know that I went to visit them and found Elder Girl sitting down on the floor of her bedroom with a mattress equally on the floor. It was a very dark Sunday in early December and I could not talk with the doctor or the nurse in charge of the ward. I planned to come back on the morrow. I went home and then I cannot remember anything.

Some time must have elapsed. One evening, there was loud banging on the kitchen door. I stumbled there and found the Head of the cleaning lady Agency with a Cleaning Lady. The Head seems to have decided to call the doctor in charge (ours was on holiday). I remember vaguely that I went back to bed and that I heard both Ladies doing the washing-up as our dishwasher had broken down a few weeks before. The doctor in charge came and probably made me an injection (I found the syringe later on my bedside table) and called for an ambulance.

I remember vaguely being carted from the house, telling the people around me which door should be closed last. I have no memory of the road to the main hospital, in Périgueux. I remember the lights when I arrived even more vividly because I was seeing a deep orange light in my left eye. I remember that I told this to one doctor, adding that it was gorgeously Pre-Raphaelite, and he wore a puzzled face. I remember that I waited a long time in a corridor, and then a box room, that there were analyses made and a scan test. I remember that I talked quite normally and fluently and did not understand why people seemed so eager around me. I remember there was a tight pain in my chest and then a sensation of gurgling water near my heart. I remember I was happy and at peace with myself.

Then there is a blank.

I awoke in a hospital room. I tore away the drip from my left arm and the contraption-like, ridiculous stockings into which my legs were encased. I went to the loo and a nurse came and severely reprimanded me, which I did not understand. Then there must have been a doctor and other tests. When I awoke again, the drip was there, in my left arm. I was attached to a monitoring machine. I could not move. I could not see with my left eye but black or darkness.

Little by little, I gathered that I had had a pulmonary embolism and what I thought was a severe migraine. It was nearing Christmas. I had no news from my Girls. I planned to have them with me on Christmas Day but was dissuaded of it. Christmas came and went. I had septicaemia with very high temperature. I could not read. I did not understand why it took so long to discharge me. I hated every day in hospital. I hated every night.

I had The Girls on the phone. They sounded very far away in their own private worlds and did not really understand me.

There was this disturbing black veil over the left downside of my left eye with bright flashes. The migraine was painful but did not want to explode and go away. I was given strong painkillers but with no effect.

New Year's Day came and went. The main doctor in charge of the service where I had been transferred came back from his holidays. Things and exams were brisker. At long last I had a brain scan. And the doctor's conclusions.

I would probably never recover the eyesight of my left eye as I had had a stroke. It was no migraine and it had happened when I was seeing this gorgeous orange Pre -Raphaelite light the night when I arrived. I had also had a heart attack. I would probably have to be careful all life long and take a heavy treatment. It had been a close brush with death. There could be others.

He was ready to send me back home but I did not feel equal to leading my old life with The Girls yet and I said so. He seemed surprised. I told him that I had been in touch with the cottage hospital where The Girls were and that I was awaited there.

Thus I was discharged and arrived at the cottage hospital on a sunny January day.

The Girls were grim at best, apathetic at worst. I was appalled at the way they were dressed. I was appalled because they did not show any sign of joy at our being reunited. I was appalled because Elder Girl did not walk anymore.  She was on the floor and was walking on all fours. She did not want to eat. I understood from the hospital doctor that she would not sleep. They were little animals.

That first evening, I said that we would have dinner all together in my room. I had to feed them, spoonful after spoonful. The whole meal. By the end of the day, which is eight o'clock pm in French hospitals, I had seen that there was a hard job before me if they were to behave normally again.

We spent a month in that cottage hospital. We could not go out because it was too cold. I was allowed to go to an ophthalmologist, and another time at home to have some cleaning-up done, trees severely pruned and the new dishwasher delivered. It was awfully cold as I guessed all fuel had been used. I emailed The Girls' financial guardian to ask for some more to be delivered before we would come back and the boiler seen to.

While we were at the cottage hospital, it was decided that we would receive help: a nurse every morning to help the girls wash and dress, and every evening to help them go to bed. Meals would be delivered while I was not able to cook. Daily help from the Cleaning Ladies Agency would be provided, as well as driving help to go shopping as I cannot drive anymore. It seemed all miraculously too good to be true.

I enquired again and again to make sure that all these wonderful provisions would be there when we left the hospital. I was assured that everything was ready.

When we arrived at home in the first fortnight of February, no fuel had been delivered: it was icy cold inside the house. There was nothing in the fridge and only two meals had been delivered: for The Girls only. I have no recognised existence to be granted this facility. Nurses would not come morning and evening: they were over-busied. The number of hours dedicated for help to The Girls was (and still is) the same as before: four hours a week. The situation was the same as the one we had when we were all healthy.

The Girls have been traumatized by their extended stay in hospital. Elder Girl has been driven to the emergencies in Périgueux hospital twice since then. She relapsed to non-eating, non-walking, non-getting up. She is now in hospital somewhere at the other end of the département and I have both no news and no means to go there: I cannot drive and there are no trains or buses.

I am slowly drowning back into deep depression. I mostly stay in my bed, in the dark, reading and "webbing" the days and nights.

Once upon a time there was a Little Family... Then, there was Flaming orange Pre-Raphaelite colour. Then there was a black Malevitch square.