Month: December 2024

Last Christmas with Bill & Peg

It was 2019 that my parents spent their last time together at Christmas. Bill was quite unwell in this picture taken on Christmas day 2019 in Chorlton. He had just undergone a pacemaker procedure in readiness for his TAVR catheter heart valve operation. The stay in Wythenshawe hospital had been quite short like an earlier admission in September. This resulted in Bill suffering a heart attack whilst undergoing imaging TAVR preparations and needed a stent in one of his arteries which suddenly became occluded.

Bill had nearly died during this minor procedure and got himself discharged as quick as possible. During a visit, Bill told me a man across the ward almost died earlier that day, with lots of medical staff attending in a frantic, terrifying emergency intervention. This had scared Bill. There was an eerie sense of relieved calm in the room when I arrived.

Home at Christmas with Peg, my Dad could not drive and needed help to organise Christmas dinner. Me and Joanne picked up a Turkey platter from Peter’s Bakery he had ordered on the phone and helped with other food they needed. Even though it appeared the TAVR operation was very safe and I was convinced Bill would survive, a part of me felt my Dad would die and this would be our last Christmas together as a family.
Maybe Bill knew, he had that look some people get when they know how bad it really is…

Rest in Peace Bill and Peg

Bill & Peg’s Back garden in April 2020

This picture was taken during the later period of the first COVID-19 lockdown in April 2020 in my parents back garden when me, Joanne and Alex, visited to bring food and supplies to them as they were old and vulnerable. Bill would give Joanne a shopping list over the phone and she would buy what he wanted in the supermarket, usually Aldi as this was cheapest. The weather was sunny, warm and we met in a safe socially distanced way, all sitting on far placed seats. It was a regular weekly event during these strange dark times.

Bill was quite ill by now due to his heart valve leaking badly. He had trouble breathing, getting tired easily if he attempted any physical activity. Peg had not been to her weekly hairdresser since March but she still seemed happy enough.
At this time, we were waiting for Bill to have a TAVR catheter value replacement operation which had been delayed and rescheduled due to the lockdown. It was now overdue many months with Bill deteriorating in health noticeably. The risk of harm was assessed as very low, 94% likely success, only 6% possibly negative outcome and of this, 1% chance of death. So pretty good odds we thought. Bill was worried despite this. Telling me, he felt he might die. I told him don’t worry the risk is so low. This is one of the last pictures I have of Bill.

Weeks later, the planned garden visit before the TAVR operation on July 28th, 2020 was cancelled because Bill had to isolate before the operation. We couldn’t see him that day as arranged. He had been expecting us to call and was disappointed when we didn’t see him, mum told me later. But the COVID restrictions forbade us to see Bill. I regret not breaking the rule because I never had a cup of tea with my Dad again before he died the next Tuesday in Wythenshawe hospital.

Rest in Peace Bill and Peg

Anniversary of my Mum’s Birthday – 8th December 2024

I am remembering my mother, Peg’s Birthday, today, the 8th December 2024 when she would have been 92 years old if she had survived. Peg or Margaret Mary Moran, died on Friday 5th January 2024 in the MRI hospital, Manchester at around 10am. Her death was sudden and shocking; being in reasonable health the preceding month or so, there was no indication she would die so quickly.
At this time and day, last year (2023), I visited my mother at Gorton Parks Care home in the evening at 8pm, bringing her birthday presents, cards to her room, number 36. She was in bed and stayed in bed all the time, not wanting to go out. Her legs were bad and she couldn’t walk unaided, needing to use a wheelchair to go to lounge, bathroom or anywhere. But she was still alive and today she is not.
Her life had deteriorated since my father died in 2020 from a failed heart valve operation, Peg ending up in a psychiatric hospital because of self-neglect, she wouldn’t eat, wash or look after her personal care. After months of extreme treatment including EST for depression, she was discharged to the care home where she remained until her death this year.

I miss the visits to my mother in the evenings; we sat together, listened to the radio, watched TV, talked about her life, how she was feeling today, her ‘funny feelings’ as she put it. She would often say she did not feel real and checked with me if it was real. Unfortunately, it was reality. I would stay until 10.30pm when toast and tea would be brought by the care home staff, whom I got to know over the 20 months Peg stayed there.

After she died, I went back to the care home to collect her clothes, belongings and went to her room but she was not there anymore. I stood outside looking in the half-opened door. The same LG TV was on she had watched but an old man was lying in her bed now. It was hard to comprehend, was it real or imagined. Perhaps my mum was somewhere else in the building, in another room, maybe they had moved her without telling me. But I knew this was not so because I had buried her a month earlier in Southern cemetery at her funeral in a coffin with her name on it.

Mum hope you are happy up in heaven with Bill by your side.

Rest in Peace

Tony