Fern, my story

As Combined Touch started with Fern (Tess’s mum – her picture heads our social media pages), our blog starts with her journey.

Fern

I am scared, my hip hurts and the doctors say I have to have a new hip. I wish I had never given up smoking as I am longing to take a long drag on a white nicotine stick and inhale that lovely smoke into my lungs. But hey ho, I have given up so will have to satisfy myself with a chunk of yummy cake and a slug of luscious whisky and orange. Ah what a painkiller!

As I lie in the hospital bed after the operation, miracle upon miracles my hip doesn’t hurt but I do feel really weird because they keep topping up my morphine intake.

Why oh why do English people insist on offering me tea?! I don’t want tea. I hate the stuff and have hated it ever since I landed in Dover with all those English troops. The ladies from the Red Cross gave me a disgusting milky, sweet, tepid drink which I later discovered was tea. Yuk. That was all because my dad got us on the wrong boat in Dunkirk and, instead of going to the south of France for him to fight the Germans, we ended up in England where I don’t understand anyone.

There was so much walking from Liège, helping mum and dad push our cart and diving for cover whenever we heard a plane because we didn’t know whether it was friend or foe. There were so many dead animals. Now we are in England and me, Henri and Doris are going to a convent school where the nuns are harsh. Oh I am so homesick.

I am at home with my lovely husband and children dropping in to see us. We have four children and even more grandchildren and when they come over on a Sunday I love to listen to them chatting. 

Ken has taken over much of the cooking because he likes to run his house like he ran his job in the air force and I am not efficient enough for him. I guess he started to take over when my hip made me immobile and he doesn’t like to relinquish the reigns now I have a new hip. I am tired and don’t have the energy to fight him so just let him get on with it. I do wish he wouldn’t keep moving things around in the kitchen because it disorientates me and I cant see as well as I used to.

I put the ice cream in the oven and the coffee in the fridge yesterday. I can’t understand how I did that. I have always done things a bit differently, like when my two eldest daughters started smoking that weed stuff and I needed to know what the kick was so I smoked a joint. I wouldn’t say it was horrible but I didn’t see the point. A good glug of whisky seems to be cheaper and less smelly. That’s what I told my daughters and it worked on one of them.

My eyesight is getting worse so they are doing my cataracts. I had one done yesterday. I didn’t like it much but I can see better now. They are doing the other one soon. Maybe I can challenge Ken a bit more in the kitchen as he is driving me mad moving things around and we keep moving house too. Why does he do that? I find that with each move I drift in and out of my dream world more and more.

It was a great life in Singapore. We had Eyah, the Malaysian maid who helped me with the children. They looked so sweet squatting round the rice pot with her and eating their curry. And what about the time I had my hair coloured and it came out orange?! All the children were staring at my bright orange hair. I really didn’t want to come out of the car and Ken wouldn’t stop laughing.

They say the second cataract operation did not work because it hid macular degeneration. It seems I am losing my sight.

We have moved again. Ken didn’t like the house in Lincolnshire so we have moved back to another rented house in Newark. The children are not happy though and are nagging Ken to buy a house and settle down.

I hear Ken and his sister talking about me. They think I am getting stupid and keep telling me to stop putting things in the wrong place. They won‘t let me go out on my own either although they do leave me in the house on my own. I wish they wouldn’t do that. I can‘t see properly and get a bit frightened on my own.

I am having a break from Ken and going on a road trip to France with my daughter. We are going to Brittany. It is very hot and all the locals seem to be so excited because Portugal is winning the football tournament. I don’t know why she keeps on at me to take off my jumper. I don’t feel hot but she says it‘s 30 degrees. Huh! Daughters!

Ken is ill; he is really ill. They say he might die. I really don’t like being left on my own in the house and one of my daughters is coming to stay with me. Bless her. She has taken time off work.

I get so tired now and one day, after a little sleep, I woke up and couldn’t see anyone. I got really frightened and tripped over the rug in my panic.

Another daughter is coming to stay with me as Ken is still ill. She is taking me to this nice place that reminds me of a school I used to work in. They make me go to bed at 8pm though and get me up early in the morning. Then I sit in a chair in between getting some food. There is a big television and some people to talk to. The woman in the chair next to me snores a lot.

Ken is better and I can leave the school, but guess what? We have moved house again. He says this will be the last time though. His sister keeps coming to our house, and we get other visitors but I am not sure who they are. As long as Ken is near me I don’t get so frightened especially when he lets me hold his hand.

I don’t like peas. I spit the skins onto the floor and Ken and his sister get angry. If I want to spit, I spit. When I see a magpie or when I have a grape or peanut. Phpp, phpp, go the skins. Every day someone comes to my chair and sweeps around my feet.

I get scared a lot these days. I only feel safe when someone is holding my hand. I wake up in the night and there is a lady who sits and holds my hand until I go back to sleep because Ken is snoring his head off.

I saw my daughter the other day. She was talking to me but then she was gone. It was good to see her for a second though. I am tired. I am scared. I keep asking Jesus to help me. I am sure he will soon.

Fern passed away from pneumonia surrounded by her children and husband and was finally at peace again.