In the Midst of Life

cup, would probably be repellent to her. No morning drink. Not yet, anyway.
    One of the nurses placed a chair beside Mrs Doherty. I asked Priscilla if she would like a cup of coffee, but she shook her head. She still had not spoken. We left the room and shut the door.
    Five minutes later she came out and asked to see me. The confidence, the assumption of superiority, had been knocked out of her.
    ‘This is a bad business, Sister.’
    ‘Your mother has had a severe stroke, which is always distressing to see.’
    ‘Iwas not aware it would be as bad as this.’
    I refrained from saying that she did not look nearly as bad as she had a fortnight earlier. Instead, I said, ‘Your mother is making progress as well as can be expected.’
    She turned suddenly, almost angrily. ‘But she cannot speak!’
    ‘No.’
    ‘She can only make gurgling noises.’
    ‘The side of her brain controlling speech has been affected.’
    ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ she demanded.
    ‘There is very little we can do, apart from physiotherapy, to encourage the healing powers of nature.’
    ‘Healing powers of nature! Is that
all
you are doing? There must be some drugs she can have. What about all the miracles of modern medicine we hear so much about?’
    I thought how the miracles of modern medicine can prevent someone dying from a stroke, but cannot restore the loss of speech nor the loss of muscular control that are its legacy.
    ‘I must see the consultant. I must discuss what can be done about this distressing situation.’
    I was explaining again that Miss Jenner was not expected on the ward until the following day, when I heard a familiar voice in the corridor. ‘Excuse me a moment,’ I said, and went out. It was Miss Jenner.
    ‘Hello, Sister. We closed theatre earlier than expected, so I thought I would just pop down to see how Miss Patterson is getting on. Perhaps that drain can come out. And if you can find a cup of coffee, that would be nice.’
    I told her that Priscilla, Mrs Doherty’s eldest daughter, was in the office and wanted to speak to her.
    ‘I’ll see Miss Patterson first, then have a chat with her.’
    A little later, before we parted for lunch, I caught up with Miss Jenner, and she told me what Priscilla had said. ‘She seems to think that we can restore her mother’s speech and movement by drugs. It astonishes me, the ignorance of the most fundamental medical facts that intelligent, well-informed people sometimes display.’
    ‘Very true,’ I laughed.
    ‘Sheseems to think that because we have not already done so, we are being negligent, and have missed an obvious point.’ She shrugged her shoulders despairingly. ‘I don’t know what she thinks we should be doing, but she is demanding another medical opinion.’
    ‘And will you get one?’
    ‘Well, I shall have to get a geriatrician’s assessment for her mother. She can’t stay here indefinitely. This is an acute surgical ward. She will have to go to the geriatric ward. That will give her daughter the second opinion she requires.’
    Miss Jenner sighed deeply. She was a lady in her fifties, about twenty years older than I was.
    ‘It used to be so much easier in the old days. When I was a medical student it was not expected that anyone would survive a massive cerebral haemorrhage. All the medical textbooks, all the lecturers, informed us that death would result within a few hours, or at most a few days.’
    ‘I doubt if anyone would say that now.’
    ‘Oh no!’ Miss Jenner said emphatically. ‘No one would dare to say such a thing. They would be in serious trouble. It is a very dangerous subject.’
    Miss Jenner left, and I sat very still at my desk, my mind going back about twelve years. Miss Jenner had used exactly the same words that Matron Aldwinkle had used when I was a student nurse – ‘This is a dangerous subject.’

A FAMILY DIVIDED
     
    The geriatrician came to assess Mrs Doherty and advised a rehabilitation centre. Miss Jenner said that the patient could not remain for long on the acute ward, and asked if a bed could be found on the geriatric ward until rehabilitation. It was not easy – there were too many patients and too few beds available. The consultants both knew the difficulties. ‘We’ll ask the medics. They have more of a turnover than we do.’ The medical registrar came to see Mrs Doherty and said that a patient with colitis would be discharged at the end of the week and a bed could be