Last Saturday it was, I decided I'd had enough. Enough of the gloom and the rain that wanted to be slush, and the  Cardiovascular Ward, and the worsening prognosis and the ongoing misery.
Enough already.
It's meant to be the Easter holidays..

So I've booked a holiday.
The Cherub and I fly out of Edinburgh International Airport first thing on Thursday.

We are going to warmer climes.
Climes with funny money and lots of foreign food
And if the locals don't understand, we'll just speak slowly till they do.

Yep.  Two days in London coming up.

I have no idea if Glasgow's Western Infirmary was built next to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery through accident or some strange Victorian high minded design for All Round Improvement.
But it is.  The hospital where my mother has been laid up in cardiovascular surgery is bang next to the Kelvingrove. She's on level 9 of the Western, and you can look our over the turrets towards the park and the university in one direction, the river and the science museum in the other.
Bang tidy as the Cherub would say.

And five years or so ago, one of my favourite pictures was returned to the Kelvingrove.
The first time I saw Dali's Christ on The Cross According to St James, I would have been about twelve. I can't remember why I was walking around on my own, but I do remember seeing this picture at the end of along corridor and getting it.

You're looking down at Christ, you're in God's place - maybe this is a religious picture that says there's no god? Earth and the fishing boats looks better than that dark lonely heaven; except that there is a heaven, because there is this wonderful Christ figure. And there is a deep peace coming through the dark.
Hey I got it so much, I even remembered the name of this picture even though at the time I had no idea who St James was, or why he had anything to say about Christ.

With an hour to kill before visiting time last week, I went to revisit the picture.

Turns out I'm not the only one to love this picture. Christ on the Cross etc is no longer at the end of his long lonely corridor. He's now part of a popular display.  Ensconced in a small cubicle, with a bench for onlookers, and a video explaining the wonder of the picture and its history. Including the time it was attacked by a local Glaswegian. There's longer explanations on the walls of the restoration process, and Dali's inspiration. And crowds.  There's a queue to get in and sit and look.

And somewhere along the line, the peace has been lost.
Buy postcard of it, go see mother, don't tell her you've been looking at religious pictures in case..

Okey dokey, I've done it!
I have exercised my rights under section 80F of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

Yes indeedy.  Settle down at the back there.

For those who aren't already in the know, section 80F gives us little people the right to ask for flexible working arrangements which will help care for a kid or an elderly relative.

It also gives the employer the right to say no.

See what they did there??

I can ask, and they can say no.  A full blown cynic would say that being given the right to be told no wasn't that much of an advance in workers rights.  
And a half hearted cynic would agree.

 But.. but ..but this doesn't have to be a complete waste of time.
What about you place a bet?
Go on

It all started last April; and , yes pedants, I know it actually started long before that, but (hint) this isn't a medical textbook.

It started last April when she was complaining about an ulcer on her heel.  And my mother had a long and bitter story about a man who had banged her heel with his airport  trolley. And I didn't ask too many questions. I just changed the subject.


I did wonder though when by May, the ulcers were spreading, but I wasn't getting a straight answer out of my mother. She's not good with answering questions.

By June she had trouble walking, in July she fell and couldn't get up and I called her GP, because it looked like she couldn't manage on her own anymore. And I did ask the GP questions, and he prevaricated and referred her to a specialist.

The specialist gave us a couple of long words to be going on with like Peripheral Arterial Disease but was short on detail, so I consulted Google instead.

Which was frightening. I've given you a link to a page without pictures.

The operation didn't work.
The drugs to fight the infection aren't working
She's been already lost toenails and  muscles - and now she's got gangrene.

There's been one question I've been scared to ask for awhile.

Last Thursday our new babyfaced consultant finally mentioned the amputation word.

Now I've got a lot of questions I can't ask in front of my mother.

• How far up will you amputate?
• Will it be both legs?
• Can you teach someone with early stages dementia to walk on a prosthesis?