.When mum had her fall in December, the hospital sent her neck scan to a major orthopaedic unit at a hospital about 30 miles away. The results had been inconclusive – they couldn’t tell whether it was an old neck fracture or a new one, so they decided she’d better wear a neck brace for between 2 and 6 weeks with a review after 2 weeks. As that would fall within the Xmas holiday period, I didn’t think much about it when they didn’t contact us, but as it drew near to 6 weeks, I asked the Care Home staff if they’d heard anything.

Mum is incredibly uncomfortable with the brace: she can’t sleep properly, she can’t eat properly, she needs a straw to drink. It rubs on her chest and under her chin. With the result, said the Care Home, that she keeps trying to take it off.

They assured me they’d been phoning the hospital but had not yet got any answers. When we were into the 7^th week, they said the Doctor’s secretary had rung to say he would be looking at the case. But it had nothing to do with any doctor! The physios had put it on, following the orders of the main hospital. This Doctor wouldn’t know anything about it. I decided I was going to take matters into my own hands and put it in writing to the hospital that, if they did not respond soon, we were going to take the brace off anyway.

At this point the paramedic from the local GP’s surgery got involved. I know him, he came to the house a few times when mum was still living at home. He said, leave it with him, he’d sort it out and indeed, he rang me back the next day. He had got in touch with the physio. She’d been on holiday, was shocked to hear nothing had been done and would quickly check and get back to him.

That was on the Wednesday morning. On Wednesday night, mum fell out of bed again and smashed her head again. Apparently, she was rolling over, trying to take off the neck brace and rolled off the bed. I had a call on Thursday morning, had to drop everything and go off to the hospital. Mum had an x-ray, then a scan. It’s an ill wind, everyone said, because then maybe we can get this problem with the brace sorted out. But really mum should not have had this second fall. She bashed her face again to the extent that one of her eyes was completely swollen up, hurt her back again and for the first few days had to have an oxygen mask. She’s 98 – she doesn’t need this and quite frankly neither do I!

The first day, I spent 7 hours at the hospital. At that point it had started to snow, so I phoned a cab and got home just before the snow became heavy. I know we don’t have a lot of snow compared to many places, but by the same token, we aren’t equipped for it. The next morning was below freezing and I got a cab into town as it was too slippery and dangerous to walk to the bus stop – by the evening, the snow had thankfully cleared although it was still bitterly cold.

I can’t afford to take a taxi every time I go, so my other journeys to and from the hospital have been on the bus and they have been horrendous. It can take between 1 ½ hours and 2 hours each way, depending on the connections. Most of the time it’s been raining, with a bitterly cold wind. I’ve managed to grab a bit of shopping in between waiting for the bus – but add the travelling to spending several hours in the hospital – and it’s a pretty long day. That’s what bureaucrats forget. Even though I’m no longer mum’s official carer I’m still expected to drop everything, cancel appointments, whatever and head off to the hospital. (And I have to say, there are always quite a few other adult daughters sitting with their aged parent in the geriatric ward and they all have something to say about the lack of support from their other siblings).

Anyway – back to mum. The first couple of days they classed her as having a spinal injury and made her lie flat – which is very uncomfortable for her. As they’ve agreed it’s an old injury and she’s therefore been walking around with it for a least a couple of years – I asked if she could sit up in a chair- while wearing the brace, naturally! And they did finally agree to that. Today the Care Home are going into to assess whether they’ll accept her back. I hope they will as she’s happy there and also, if they don’t – well, I’ll cross that bridge if I have to. And it will be me who has to sort things out. After one text on Friday afternoon I had no word from my brother until a brief text on Tuesday evening. As you can imagine, I could hardly be bothered to reply to him

But the fact remains, if the hospital had only got back to us when they said they would, mum might never have had this second fall.