Fall

I took mum into the washroom, and closed the door behind me. I've done this a dozen times, but each time I'm ever vigilant and stand close by the door of the washroom to make sure I can hear mum if she calls me.

As the nurse asked me to measure the quantity of mum's urine, I placed a potty on top of the toilet lid for mum to use. Almost as soon as she sat down, I heard her cry for help.

I opened the door to see mum bent over, her hands supporting her body to prevent her from tipping over. I rushed to help her, but she slip off the toilet bowl and sat on the floor, her pants were still around her ankles. It was such a sorry, and painful sight...

Mum could not get up. She tried standing up, but she could not. A part of her urine which was in the potty spilled onto the floor, and she got some on her hospital-issue pants. The stench was very bad, and due to the blockage of her bile duct, and digestive system generally, her urine was particularly reddish, like iodine, and immediately dyed her pants.

I panicked and tried to pull mum up from the floor by putting my hands under her arms, but I could not. Her legs just would not stand. "I have no strength... No strength..." Again, it was such a sorry sight seeing mum sit on the floor with her pants around her ankles, and I am sure for her it wad particularly humiliating for her own son to see her almost fall and be half naked on the floor and unable to get up.

We struggled a bit, and eventually she grabbed onto bars installed around the toilet and together with support from me, she managed to get onto her wobbly feet again. We walked ever so slowly and quietly back to her bed. She lay down and curled up in a foetal position.

There seemed to be moisture in the corner of her eye. I suspect from the scare just now in the washroom, buy perhaps also from the huge blow to her dignity. She looked at ms with scared eyes, and I stroked her hand to reassure her. "It doesn't matter. It's over now..." She looked so helpless. She is so helpless.

I went back into the washroom to clear up the mess and to wash off some of the urine that had got onto my slippers. "Poor mum..."

My poor mum... How the illness has robbed her of much of her independence, mobility and increasingly also dignity...