Update from previous blog

Heard from Mum last night, she has been to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital where she has had an angiogram, and as a follow up to the events in August 2010 when she had to have four stents inserted, she says in one half of her body, this time to failure is on the other side. Whether this is left/right or in the out/return systems is unclear. But she is to go to Papworth in Cambridge to have a bypass.

She is still very breathless, but is talking and has access to a phone.

You can ready my post from 1st August 2010 to find out her responses to that heart attack was initially to say she would not give up the fags before the operation to promising to give up after it.

Obviously, she failed to give up, and lied to us on several occasions that she had given up, despite the smell of stale smoke in the house the obvious giveaway.

Seven years after her last scare, she has had another, and this time will require major surgery. It won't happen right away as Papworth has no beds, but once there is a bed she will be transferred and the operation take place. We were surprised that the decision was to operate, as she does not seem to be the most healthy of people; she spends 23 hours a day sitting in her armchair, only going out on her scooter.

In a tense phone call on Wednesday, I said she had a life choice to make, not many people (my Dad included) get to have a second or third choice. She said all the usual things she does. But as to whether she will change, who knows? Time is ticking, she is all out of Jokers, and with me the only other member of the family, I live four hours away, she has to either be able to look after herself, or sell up and move into a smaller retirement home that is easier. Hard to do the latter shen she has been dipping into equity release for a decade and we suspect not much of her house is actually hers any more.