Monday 31st May 2010

We did manage to have Helen at home at her own house overnight on Saturday - it went really well. She loved being there and slept on a little mattress in the living room within easy sight of the garden and sound of the birds. Sally and Tim and I sat round and chatted with her and each other and we all watched an episode of Rumpole together Saturday night. Sunday morning her friend Lyn G from Sydney visited - she and Helen have been friends since Uni days and it was great she could come and see Helen's lovely house. After this Tim and I took Helen back to the Hospice where I know a few other friends had planned to visit and Tim and Sally were going back later in the day. Tim was in high hopes of finding a DVD of Hitchcock's Rebecca to watch with Helen - apparently this is his favourite movie of all time and is his main trigger to knowing he is on holidays! Both Tim and Sally said they had really good sleeps in Darwin so hopefully there is some sense of refreshment for them too.
This next 10-14 days I am back in Brisbane doing a locum which I had organised previously when we were all in Brisbane. Louis plans to return to Darwin ~ Wed this week. Helen sounds to me as though she is really very happy to be there and her main caveat is wanting us to be there too so I think that is probably what we will try to manage.
Helen's friend Kaye is away until the 12th and as I think I said before her sister Sally is around until the 8th. I expect Helen to stay in the Hospice at RDH for most of this week - they plan to finish doing bloods, consider doing her CT scans earlier and possibly drain fluid from her lung. Hopefully we will have the equipment at the Gardens after this and also her bed at Terrace Gardens will still be available. The Hospice is a lovely place to be in any case. Visitors are really welcome and there are no restrictions on hours. Helen has asked me to tell people it is OK to wake her up if you come when she is asleep - she has no problem sleeping again anytime! She does get lonely at night sometimes so evening visits are also welcome. If you are visiting when there is food around please encourage her to eat/feed her.