Dear LPG,

One of my aunts, who I am very close to, had occasion to visit the doctor recently.  She has had a few problems with her mobility and so made an appointment to find out what could be done.  For her, the answer was a relatively major operation which left her being temporally unable to get around as she used to.  Even though she lives alone, she left hospital days after her operation and so carers were put in place to visit four times a day once she was home again but, even though she was told exactly what to expect before she agreed to the surgery, our telephone conversations were revealing the reality of her situation to be quite hard for her to deal with. 

My aunt and I have always talked nearly every evening on the telephone if I cannot get to see her and I could tell just how her lack of liberty was having a negative effect on her outlook on life.

I remember my grandmother having the same surgery about forty years earlier and after spending some three weeks in hospital she was sent away to a nursing home on the coast to convalesce for another three weeks and, while I am sure that the operation resulted in as much pain and lack of mobility as they do today it all seemed easier for my Gran to cope. 

There was someone to do everything for you and not every resident was elderly.   You spent time with others, young and old, who were in a similar position as yourself, and although they were just as unable to get around, you did not feel like the only person in this situation. While you recovered you could see exactly how much you improved from day to day and often found yourself cheering up the less positive residence.  I remember my Gran forging a really close friendship with someone she met while there.

I find it hard that all my aunt really wants to talk about is her illness, which cannot help in any other way but to make her feel more negative while my grandmother often talked about the progress of her fellow residents.  Being with them helped her to measure her improvement and talk about how much better she was doing in some way.   I think that there was something positive about being able to measure your progress against the people around you, that you just can’t get if you are recovering alone.

All I can do is, like many of her friends, call her every day because all the phone calls she receives seriously help her to not focus so much on her solitude, but when I think of the service that we had 40 years ago and compare it with what happens today, while I can see all the great innovations that scientists have made I can also see how much our NHS has backslid over the years. 

EW, Hither Green