How hospital visits take over your life

For the last few days our life has been about hospital visits to my Mum (Grandma to N!!). It is amazing how it just fills up your day. I get up walk the dogs, do some laundry, housework and washing up, make lunch and then spend some time reading or playing with N, walk the dogs again, drive to the hospital, stay for visiting, drive home, cook tea, fall asleep! I remember10 years ago my Dad was in hospital for months and I was working full time then, that WAS exhuasting!  The trouble is when you get to the hospital, the person you are visiting wants to know all the latest news and everything you have been up to - its quite disappointing for them when you have no tales to tell (because you haven't had time to do anything), in actual fact they probably have more to tell you as they have been watching the news on tv and reading the newspaper!

She has her own little side room on the ward which has advantages and disadvantages; the advantage is she can actually sleep at night, the disadvantage is when you need a nurse, your alarm can be going for over 10 minutes before someone comes to see what the problem is :( I know they have a staffing shortage but in my mind its both dangerous (if someone was needing urgent medical attention) and degrading when patients are desperate for the toilet and nobody arrives. She wants to go home on Tuesday and hopefully she will be mobile enough for them to let her go.