After my last positive post a lot of things have changed. Firstly, after Christmas, my dad had to ask Maureen to leave as she had spent about 2 out of 5 weeks at home and, while we all appreciated that she wanted to spend Christmas with her family, she hadn't arranged any alternative support for dad so he was mostly alone for 3 weeks over the Christmas period and he began to feel that she wasn't 'earning her keep'. While she seemed like a lovely person, I agree that she didn't seem to understand that the free room, board, food and petrol came with some responsibilities. Unfortunately Maureen's departure coincided with Sarah deciding that enough was enough and she needed to take a step back. This meant that Maureen departing left dad completely alone, but fortunately this meant that Social Services FINALLY got involved!
Despite her insistence that she was done, I have to say Sarah has still been a massive help, particularly in what unfolded next.....
On my visit to Cornwall at the end of January, dad and I discussed the possibility of him going into a care home for a month of respite care and we visited a luxury nursing home an hour from where he lived. While we were there they discussed him having physio every day with their in house therapist and hydrotherapy in the pool. Dad and I were both sold on the idea and we arranged him to head over on 1st March. Unfortunately things were not quite as rosey as we were expecting and it turned out that the physio was only 4 days a week, use of the pool would require hiring men to help him into the pool and dad felt that the care level was significantly lower then what he was receiving at home, which was only 4 times a day. For £915 per week, plus extra for physio, dad was not happy and he demanded that he come home. This would have been easier were it not for the fact that I was 300 miles away and undergoing a school inspection and so barely had time to sleep, let alone deal with dad. Fortunately between Sarah and a couple of his friends, they were able to arrange him coming home after 10 days, but that has meant that he is only getting 3 care visits a day as the carers had rescheduled things assuming dad would be away for a month. On the bright side of this, dad has now begun to get himself ready for bed, and I think an element of forced independence has been good for him. I'm heading down again on Friday and will have to sort out his cat and lots of other bits and bobs that were meant to be sorted on his return home, but I hope to be able to report an increased level of independence as dad is adamant he is walking better.
On a brighter note, I have just started booking a 3 week holiday in California for my 30th so I hope I will get the opportunity to meet some of you while I am out there!!!
Thank you again for all of your support
Catherine
26th March.....Changes
18th January - They tried to make me go to rehab....
Just a little update to warm the winter months.....at the end of October my niece, Bill's granddaughter, turned 3. To mark the occasion a small party was held, however Ellie's birthday also marked the moving of Lucy & her husband to Lincoln meaning that all of Bill's 3 children have now left Cornwall.
This has been a hard adjustment for us all, leaving dad helpless & far away. Luckily, help was found in the form of Maureen, who had caring experience and was looking to move to Cornwall to be nearer her grandchildren. She has now moved into Pete's former room and, while she hasn't taken on the caring burden, she has made herself available to take Bill to appointments, cook a few meals now & then and just be there in case of any emergencies or accidents.
In early November I was lucky enough to attend a visit with Bill's neurological physiotherapist. Although it'd previously been suggested that there wasn't much that could be done, I was surprised to be told enthusiastically about the progress dad was making. It seems that on his initial visits, lying on a side and rolling to his back was a near impossible task and now he could do that with ease. He had also managed to learn to stand unaided and was working on simple training requiring him to stand up, pick up a rubber ring from a vertical post and transfer it to a horizontal post. The therapist explained that he had been unable to do any of these things when he first started in August & that he was making huge, if slow, progress. The next steps were to be able to stand unaided and twist to the left or right without losing balance.
I'd like to say here and now that Becky at Helston Physiotherapy Practice deserves a huge amount of thanks for her patience and hard work - it seems she really is a miracle worker.
Bill has been using an ancient exercise bike to pedal at home (he sits in his armchair and extends his feet), as this will help with co ordination and muscle mass- we bought him a small version with just pedals, but he found it unhelpful since it had a much smaller turning circle and tended to slip away from his feet.
I was due to head down to Cornwall today for my first visit of the new year, however due to snowy conditions in London and along the whole route home, I've been told to stay in London and go down next weekend instead (needless to say, I'm curled up with a nice glass of red wine as we speak). I hope to be able to update again after that, but dad certainly feels more confident and, in fact, he has been trying to start using his laptop again and was able to read some of the lovely comments you have all been leaving - he was really happy and grateful for all the support. Hopefully, before too long, we can get him sending short emails and surfing the net so his day isn't filled with awful cookery shows and daytime tv.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas & New Year.
Catherine
15th September - the aftermath
During August dad began physiotherapy, we have since been told that he has ataxia, which is a neurological issue that can be caused by a trauma or can just occur in some people. We believe this has been caused by the bleeding which happened when he was biopsied. It has been suggested that if he had received physiotherapy within three months of receiving this injury he may have made some progress towards recovery, but since over a year has passed it is unlikely that he will 'get better' and the best we can hope is that he will learn how to cope with his disabilities. Not long after his biopsy he became seriously ill so may not have managed to undertake an physio, but it is still disappointing that his problems now not only stem from the treatment he received, but that he may not have been so seriously ill had they then done something to counter the issue they caused.
It has become clear to me that disability caused by a biopsy undertaken in the brain seems to be a serious and relatively common side affect and although my dad signed a disclaimer, which mentioned this, I'm not sure he felt like there was any real chance of it happening.
So where do we stand? Dad has been very fortunate that the physiotherapist he saw at the little local hospital arranged for him to have daily physio for 6 weeks at home, but if I'm honest, he doesn't seem to have made any significant progress, although he is a little more stable. We must face the reality that dad will never be independent again since a trip to the bathroom needs someone to accompany him in case he falls. This is a terrifying prospect as I am 300 miles away, Pete has just moved to Bristol so is 200 miles away and to make matters worse Lucy's husband has been posted to Lincoln which is 350 miles away so all 3 of dad's children are now too far away to be any real support. He is looking to get a companion to live in to help out and, while he is grateful to have survived an illness that should have killed him, the future is not nearly so positive as we had all hoped.
Once again both dad and I would like to thank you all for your positive comments and kindness throughout his illness and subsequent recovery.
28th June - Good News At Last
Dad saw his consultant today and was told some excellent news.....according to the specialist, dad's tumour has not shrunk....it's gone altogether!
This means that his weakness and lack of balance, as well as other symptoms are all due to damage from the steriods and biopsy and therefore will get better with lots of physio. More importantly, without the tumour he won't get any worse so from here on up, the only way is up!
I'm so happy right now, if a little emotional so forgive me for the short message!
x
24th June - Post Radiotherapy
I haven't posted for a while for the simple reason I didn't know what to say - dad has been in the local community hospital for about a month and we were all feeling incredibly pessimistic about the future. He has been slowly declining in terms of his general health and so when he was sent to Treliske for his last set of scans we were all prepared for the worst.
Somehow, however, we have had good news back and have been told that the radiotherapy has led the the tumour shrinking - this has surprised and amazed us all and we are now working towards dad coming home from hospital, albeit with a lot of care in place. The good news seems to have given him the kick up the backside he needed and he has begun to speak more clearly and become more enthusiastic about trying out physiotherapy in order to become more independent - this is particularly important now that Pete is off to uni in September and it is highly likely that we will need to find some sort of live in care for him, unless there are significant improvements in the next two months.
Nevertheless it is great to have some good news and we are all smiling and optimistic!
Anyway, thank you, as always, for all of your love and support
Catherine
PS http://hisnhersfood.blogspot.co.uk/
23rd March - radiotherapy over
A little update - dad has just finished 4 weeks of radiotherapy. He is weak and wobbly - speech is bad, balance is bad and strength is bad, but somehow we were expecting worse. He's glad it's over and he still has all his hair! We won't know for a few weeks if it's actually made any difference, but at least round one is done.
7th March - Radiotherapy
Dear readers,
Just a quick update to let you know that dad is halfway through his second week of a 4 week course of radiotherapy. We suspect this will be "kill or cure" and I will give you more information when I can. We've been told he will get much worse before he gets better and he's already found he's a lot weaker since starting.
Thank you again for your kind words and thoughts
Catherine
15th January - 3 Million Views!!
Dear all,
Dad has asked me to write a quick note to share that between the various blog sites he has clocked up 3 million views, which is pretty impressive!
Thank you all for your emails of support after our Christmas post and I will update you further when I can.
Catherine
A Christmas Update
Boxing Day 2011, I am visiting dad again and he has asked me to update you on his progress. For the past few months he has been taking the chemo pills every few weeks and has made some progress although he is mostly housebound. He has noticed some weakening recently, but the doctors have said they feel this may be because he's had "too much chemo." Time will tell whether he will get better or worse, but at least we've had Christmas together as a family.
Dad has a wheelchair if he does go out and is able to walk small distances with a walking stick, but he's fortunate to have my brother here to look after him as well as my sister and his girlfriend. He is grateful for all the kind comments people have made over the past few months.
Making History - Radio 4
4th August - DIY chemo
Dad has asked me to remove posts relating to his illness - after his prior insistence that every step be documented, he has now decided it is too personal for him so I have taken down all the posts except for the first two.
As things stand, he is at home and is taken what he called DIY chemo (vomit in the comfort of your own home). We have everything crossed that this will help, but for now, there won't be any more updates unless I have something important to pass on.
Thank you again for your kindness and support
Catherine
Every day is a battle
Dad was released from hospital on Friday, on the condition that he has 24 hour care organised at home.
We have carers that come in every morning and every evening to get him out and put him to bed and a nurse to check up every day. He's incredibly stubborn and so is determined to come downstairs every day to the living room, but the toilet is upstairs so it means a rather scary ascent of the stairs. He's still dizzy and wobbly and incredibly weak.
Dad is of the opinion that his first dose of chemo hasn't made any difference, but I disagree - he seems a bit more stable and sometimes his speech is a lot better (it comes and goes), but I imagine sitting around all day drinking coffee from a sippy cup can't exactly feel like 'much better'.
He's back in hospital on Wednesday to see if he's any better and then he'll have chemo again a week after for another dose (I think).
He says I have to add "thank you for all the support and messages from all my readers - it has been a great comfort in a difficult time, as you can imagine"
An update
Sorry to hijack this blog, but after all of the lovely comments from readers I felt it was important to update you all on what was going on.
After some more inconclusive tests, the doctor down in Cornwall decided that it was better to start dad on chemotherapy ASAP, because he has been so weak they changed from their original plan of one type of chemo, a few weeks break then the other, to just giving him both types at once in order to get him on the road to recovery as soon as possible.
He started the chemo on Friday evening and I believe finished it yesterday or Monday. I spoke to him yesterday and although he complained of feeling no better, and that everything they gave him tasted funny, even the water, he sounded much more like his old self (he wouldn't believe me though!). After several weeks of struggling to understand him on the phone, he finally sounded much clearer again.
He's hoping to be out of hospital on Friday or Saturday, but it depends how his immune copes, and hopefully he'll be able to update you on his progress himself, but we'll have to wait and see.
Thank you again for all your kind words, it has meant a lot to all of us to know that so many people care.
Catherine
Harry Lamin 1921-1961
Written by Catherine, Bill's daughter:
After the war Harry went back to work at the lace factory. At this point Dad draws on his own memories of Harry. He describes remembering staying with him with his sister Anita and sharing a double bed, the smell of pipe smoke and playing with his hammer shot gun (a perfect toy for a 6 year old).
Anita recalls a Sunday afternoon where her grandfather woke up screaming with nightmares from the war. His mother claimed that Ethel had burnt all of Harry's letters, but fortunately it was only her own letters that she destroyed.
Dad's memories of his grandparents are rather vague since it was 40 years ago that his grandfather died, but he recalls walking to the gasworks for coke (for the fire) and lemonade from the little corner shop, which was a special treat that wasn't allowed at home. He says that in childhood every Sunday his grandparents would visit with fruit gums, pastilles and a bar of chocolate, items that had been rationed and so were still considered a big treat (Dad just asked whatever happened to Fry's 5 Boys Milk Chocolate?). He would walk to his grandparents house after school, as it was only a little bit further then going home.
Harry often frequented the horse racing, which his wife did not approve of, he went to Southall on the other side of Nottingham. Dad says that he doesn't recall if Harry ever particularly won, and as a child he is sure that any significant losses would have been kept from him.
One of the more interesting stories describes the move to Gordon Street from Mill Street. Harry was reluctant to move house, possibly because his home was one place where he felt safe after everything he had been through, so one day Ethel moved everything to his new home while he was at work. From Gordon Street, Dad recalls watching football out of the window, which is perhaps where his love of the game came from.
Even now, while struggling with his illness, Dad has said repeatedly that his grandad is a huge inspiration to him, while in hospital he said that one thing that kept him going was thinking about all the things Harry went through and yet remained strong.
I would like to finish with a quote from the book, made more poignant by the fact that whenever Dad has felt particularly unwell he has echoed his own grandfather's words:
"Harry retired at sixty-five in 1952, and lived until 1961, when he died peacefully at home. My mother, telling me of his death, reported that he said, 'I've had a good life'"
Apologies and Sad News
Dear all,
This is my first post on my father's blog. He has asked me to write to you all to update you with what's been going on for the last few months. As you have no doubt noticed, there has not been an update to the blog for a number of months; sadly this is because shortly after his father's death, Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumour. After a lot of trips to various hospitals he has been increasingly unwell and now struggles with the most simple things whilst remaining completely fine mentally so that he can't walk or talk some days, and he struggles to read and type, but he wants to be able to do everything and he can't. Obviously he is finding things very hard, but we remain optimistic about the future. In the last two weeks he has had a biopsy and although the results have come back as inconclusive, the samples have been sent to London for further examination. It is thought that he has a small tumour, but it is surround by lots of inflammed tissue which can be reduced by steriods, but that further treatment is required to get rid of the source of the problem; he is seeing a haemotologist on Monday to consider treatment options such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Unfortunately, during the biopsy there was a small amount of bleeding which has meant that he has lost all sense of balance and so is now struggling even more to be mobile.
Dad and I would both like to apologise for not updating the blog sooner in the year and we aim to work together to get as much written as we can both of Harry's journey and of Dad's own journey through this illness.
I thank you once again for taking an interest in our family's history,
Catherine
(Bill's middle child)
William (Bill) Lamin 1916-2010
Sadly, Bill, my father passed away yesterday afternoon, 30th December, aged 94. It wasn't completely unexpected, he has been very frail for quite some time.
Bill (Willie in the blog) was born 9 months before his father Harry was conscripted. He was one of main characters, frequently mentioned in Harry's letters. Click here for the start of Willie's story, in four instalments.
I am very sad that Bill was never really able to grasp how the blog worked. He certainly wasn't able to understand that the book was about his father.
Harry, from 1920
Harry left the army in January 1920 (Note; he was, of course discharged from the Royal Munster Fusiliers - not the York & Lancaster Regiment) and was given a final payment of £61 2s 1d (£61.10) made up of almost £34 back pay and a £15”war gratuity"(an example of the military’s sense of humour, £5 a year for enduring unbelievable conditions), 4 weeks pay for leave (I was sure "furlough" was a U.S. term), ration allowance and a clothing allowance. From this £1 was deducted. Harry was allowed to keep his heavy army greatcoat for the journey home. If he handed it in at a railway station, he would get his £1 back. The £61 2s 1d was paid, by post, in three weekly instalments and was worth about £3,000 in today’s money. note; The paper that the Demobilization (surely, "Demobilisation" in England in 1920!) Account was printed on has disintegrated. I just did a jigsaw job on the scanner bed and then returned the pieces to the envelope. BLTwo related sites
I have been pleased to contribute to help others with similar material to get moving. Harry's blog and book has certainly stimulated several other similar websites particularly Dieter Finzen's "mirror image" German soldier's WW1 blog, Erich Rochlitzer's German WW 2 Blog and Sam Avery's WW1 "doughboy" blog. I am very proud to have initiated a new and exciting use for the internet. My one good, maybe great, idea.
This week two new publications been brought to my attention. Both are concerned with World War2 and, coincidentally, both concerned with life, not at the front, but back home in England during that war.
The first is a book and blog, "E.J. Rudsdale's Journals of wartime Colchester", edited by Cathy Pearson. E.J. referred to the futility of the slaughter in the war that ended 20 years earlier, on which to base his decision not to join up and fight. I can understand his viewpoint.
The second is May Hill's diary and poetry ;"The Casualties were Small" edited by Tom and Margaret Ambridge which was published as a book and now is being "blogged".
World War 1 from Above
A follower from the U.S. has informed me that the "World War 1 from Above" programme is available on YouTube and is well worth a look. In the supporting material, there is a very good account of the "Messines Ridge" battle that was part of Harry's war. The programme (it is English so I'm allowed the "correct" spelling) is split into four 15 minute sections and is of a good quality. Click on the links to view.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Insight into Harry's World - TV Programme
The BBC showed ""World War One from above" on Sunday. It's still available on-line but probably only in the U.K. (Note the consequent careful spelling of programme - with 2 "m"s and an "e") .
A French aviator filmed the Western front battlefields from a balloon, shortly after the war ended. That filming was linked to well researched background material, with a particularly good account of the Messines Ridge battle, which Harry took part in. (Chapter 4 of the book - June 1917 in the blog).
The programme suggested that the Messines mines were set off sequentially, working to the south - that the Germans in the southernmost trenches watched with increasing horror as a vision of Armageddon approached. All accounts I've read indicated that the mines were fired simultaneously at precisely 3 am. ( I don't see any significant military benefit in a sequential system - with only seconds between detonations.) Does anyone have any more information?
Update. I'm reading Nicholas Rankin's excellent book "Churchill's Wizards". In it he describes "a rolling sequence that lasted an appalling 28 seconds". I don't know if that was the intention or the result of imprecise timings. Access to the orders for the attack, at army level, may be able to answer that one.
I found the whole programme to be excellent. Particularly chilling were the views of the water filled shell holes across the Passchendaele battlefield. Not just a few, the whole battlefield completely covered with, what looked from the air like puddles, but which were actually small lakes that would easily drown a man laden with military equipment.
This week, the blog should pass another milestone with the three millionth pageload. There are still over a thousand visitors a day with a steady flow of positive and rewarding comments.
