The Story of Lily - a Woman of Strength

This week was International Women’s Day. It took me no time at all to identify a woman who commanded my total respect and who deserves my acknowledgment on this special day.

Lily* was a patient of mine when I worked as a Community Nurse. Her memory will be with me forever.

The GP had rung the nursing office to request a visit to Lily. He had discovered an open wound on her breast. She knew that it was cancer but opted not to seek treatment as she did not want surgery. What she had not anticipated was the spread to her lungs. At the GP consultation she had hoped for a prescribed linctus for an irritating cough – the doctor quickly put two and two together and made his discovery.

For seven years she had cleaned and dressed the lesion herself.

When I say a wound on the breast, I actually mean where the breast had been. It now had the appearance of a mastectomy, a flat wound – no breast left.  Every morning Lily got up early to clean and dress the wound before her sister got up. As it became bigger and deeper, lumps of tissue were coming away. She would place the debris and dirty dressings in a Cornflakes or similar waste carton, take it up the garden, and burn it.

Staunchly independent, she initially refused a nurse visit and continued her routine. She considered our time better spent with people who were really ill. With further persuasion, she allowed the nurse to visit once a week. We could advise on the specialist dressings and techniques available. She had been buying rolls of gauze and sticky tape which she sprinkled with Rose water to mask the odour.

Lily and her sister lived in a quiet residential street in a much sought-after area of Leicester. As I pulled up outside the neat, post-war semi-detached, the kettle would be put on to simmer.  With a Cancer diagnosis, it was our practice to build a supportive relationship with the patient and family. The dressing check was incidental, Lily had coped well through the traumatic stages as her breast disintegrated. It was now just leakage from the scar tissue. The cup of tea we shared afterwards was the important and supportive part of the visit.

For two years, the Tuesday visit became routine. The sisters continued to attend a Friendship Fellowship at the church each week, Lily driving them there. They visited the hairdresser at the same time and day each week for a shampoo and set. They always looked immaculate.

Iris had Learning Disabilities and had moved in, along with her frail parents, when Lily lost her second husband. It was easier for Lily to have them all under her roof to care for them. When their parents passed away, Iris remained with Lily.  Caring was not new to Lily, she had already nursed Bert, her first husband, through a chronic illness until his death.

Not anticipating another romance, Lily had met Ian as the solicitor who had taken care of her parents’ estate. They went on to have one son.  Paul was married and lived locally. He visited his mum and aunt regularly. Lily knew how busy his work was and would never request too much from him.  When Ian, too, received a terminal diagnosis, Lily, of course, nursed him at home until he died.

When I left Lily’s one afternoon, I had been quite shocked by the news given to me. Lily was selling the house. People in their late 70’s do not usually move house. It had come as a real surprise to me.  She had secured a council bungalow about a mile away. When the sale went through, most of Lily’s beautiful furniture and antiquities had to go to her son or be sold.

I visited Lily and Iris at their new address and was shown around. The only bedroom was quite small. It had been necessary for Lily to buy a new three-quarter sized bed for the two of them when her double bed proved too big for the room. Two singles, not an option for the same reason. They both appeared happy with the newly decorated bungalow.

To acquaint themselves with the neighbours, Lily had pushed a note through each door in the cul-de-sac. She invited them to tea and cakes, to introduce themselves to their new community.  It was not very long after the move that Lily’s health went into a decline. I was worried about her. Finding myself in their area after completing my visits, I decided to take my lunch-hour with them.

Lily was very poorly and in pain. Her greatest concern was not having been able to get her hair set. I pulled her kitchen stool up and seated her over the kitchen sink to wash her hair. I asked if she had any curlers and Iris went into the bedroom and bought out a Quality Street tin. Contained within were several spikey pink plastic rollers and hairgrips.

With Lily’s hair wrapped around with a full head of rollers, I offered to call back after work to remove them and style her hair.  But it was Friday and her daughter-in-law was calling after work with fish and chips; she would remove the rollers.

That was the last time I saw Lily in the bungalow. As I left to return to the Health Centre, Lily said “God sent you to me today.”

The next time I visited Lily, she was in one of the old-fashioned ‘Nightingale’ wards at the Royal Infirmary. She was propped up in bed and commented that she had been admitted the day after her hair-do, for pain control. She was happy that her hair remained presentable, my abilities as a coiffeur had passed muster. I continued to visit the hospital in my lunch-hour each day, knowing her time was short.

My last visit found her semi-conscious. I approached her bed, bent over and whispered “It is me Lily”. She replied, her eyes still closed, “I know, I smelled you come through the door.” She was familiar with the smell of my perfume.

Lily died on the ward. My next visit was to her funeral, where all her actions made total sense.  She had selected and paid for her burial plot. The hymns and the service planned in advance. 

Lily had settled Iris into the home that would become hers.  The council rent was paid for a year and an allowance left to meet future costs.  Iris knew where to shop, where to catch a bus and how to get to the church, the doctors and the hairdressers.  She had the benefit of knowing the district and could call on Paul or any of the neighbours if she needed help.

Indeed, she had done just that when she was worried about Lily. The neighbour had telephoned for an ambulance.

How hard it must have been for Lily to uproot herself from her beloved home, but the house sale meant that her estate was neatly tied up and ready for her son to inherit.

Lily was never a burden on anyone, selfless to the end - what a woman.

Carolyn Wheatley

*Please note that all names have been changed in this story.

The Book Disaster of 1952

I was fortunate enough to have been born into a family that valued and encouraged the accumulation of story books.

Birthdays and Christmas always seemed to produce a varied collection of ‘suitable reading.’  The Boys Book of this and that, and the adventures of five imagined children, courtesy of the famous Enid Blyton, come to mind.  I was never careless with my growing library, and items relating to railways always dropped easily to hand.

Came the Christmas of 1952 and my parents accepted the opportunity to take the family to my aunt and uncle in Melton Mowbray.  After a wonderful but very cold Christmas season, we all returned to our family home at Queens Road in Loughborough.  The first clue that something was very wrong was the sight of water running out of the front door.

I was told to wait outside while Dad waded down the flooded hallway. Mum was in tears.  The water pipes above a huge cupboard in the living room had frozen and then burst.  Water was cascading through the entire contents, including all of my books, and most of my collection of toys.

The soggy mess that finished up in the dustbin sadly included (I discovered years later) four first edition copies of Thomas the Tank Engine, now worth a small fortune.

Like most good parents, promises of replacement items were made in good faith, and the imminent arrival of the local plumper seemed to be upmost in their minds.  For me however, it was the trauma that taught me a fundamental truth:-

Nothing in life is totally safe or secure; sad events must be expected and endured with forbearance.

It is part of growing up!

David Taylor

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

For the Love of Books

Much as I have always loved writing, reading never played a big part in my childhood. In the 1950/60’s our time was spent outdoors in all weathers. Our home was not a place of comfort, we ate and slept there. Three sisters in a three-quarter sized bed, it was neither warm, light, or spacious enough to read in bed.

Aged five, I did not find reading difficult and spelling has always come easy to me. Janet and John books at school was where my reading started. Each pupil was required to read a paragraph or two out loud, and that was that until the next English lesson.

Listening to stories was always magical in Infant school. Each afternoon ended with the class sitting cross legged on the classroom floor. Summer was extra special when we sat on the grass under the willow tree. Miss Christian read to us for 30 minutes and everyone was totally immersed in the tales. This before TV, and was all the more enjoyed. Bedtime stories were non-existent in our house or amongst most of our friends. Radio for children was very limited and I only remember the Ovaltinies on a Sunday evening.

Aged around ten years, I joined the local library. ‘Milly, Molly, Mandy’ and ‘The Secret Seven’ were favourites. This was my first experience of being totally consumed in a book. I heard no-one speak to me and went into a world that should have been visited more often.

Our council home contained only two books for most of my life. My sisters fared a little better when my father failed to out-talk a door-to-door encyclopaedia salesman. He complained continually about his moment of weakness and the weekly instalments.  I was already working by that time, my school life terminating at the age of fifteen years and two months.

The only paperback in the house was ‘The Diary of Ann Frank.’ I remember regularly picking it up and reading it. However, when I later saw the theatre production, I was shocked that Ann died, so I guess I never reached the end.

The other was a medical book. This was mum’s diversion from embarrassing questions. At the pre-pubescent age of 10, I was given the book to read. The relevant ‘menstruation’ chapters were marked by the page corners turned over.

When I ventured into book-reading, I only liked true life – nonfiction.  Science Fiction, Fantasy and Romance are non-starters for me, and my favourites would be based around Crime and Forensics. The Paul Brittan books were set around the Towers Hospital where I ended my career and so were particularly interesting.

Holidays abroad in my 30’s heightened my love of a good book. Two weeks laying on a sunbed provided the perfect leisure time to read. I would take six or so books with me and often ended up seeking more reading in the library of discarded books at the hotel.

The night before we left a friend gave me the fiction story, ‘Lovely Bones.’ It was a small book and I tucked it into my hand-luggage. On the four-hour flight to Fuerteventura, I started to read it.

Several caffeinated coffees were consumed during the long day of travel. At home our drinks are decaffeinated, and at bedtime, I was wide awake. Not a wink of sleep was had that night and by breakfast, the book was finished.

My mother-in-law was an avid reader until dementia robbed her of the pleasure. After her death, and with her two daughters living away, the house clearance fell to myself and my husband.  Deep in a drawer, I found a journal. The hand-written notes were fascinating. She had recorded every book she had read. Alongside the title and author was a résumé of her thoughts and evaluations - “Nice short chapters, repetitive terms or words, foul language”. 

These evaluations were wonderful to read and prompted me to do the same. Her record of the month and year enabled the start of her dementia to be identified. She would write that she had read half a book before querying whether she had read it before. Tracing back through her notes confirmed that she was reading the same few books.

The appetite for reading a good story provides mixed feelings. The utter drive to turn the pages as quickly as possible, combined with a dread of reaching the end. The fear being that no other book can ever match this one.

My most recent read was ‘The Radium Girls’, written by Kate Moore. My granddaughter lent me this book. It follows the death sentence on pretty young girls employed to paint the hands of luminous dial and watch hands. The paint contained radium that was portrayed to them as harmless.  To form a point on the fine paintbrushes, they were trained to shape it with their mouth and lips. They were told that radium would make them healthy, and they believed it. They glowed as they walked home in the dark.

Some years later, the girls were dying prematurely. Their teeth rotted and extraction found non-healing gums, jaw bones disintegrated along with their joints.  When one body was exhumed for evidence, the corpse was still glowing several years later.

Claims for compensation towards medical bills were dismissed, liability denied. Evidence from medical examinations was hidden, the girls denied access. Meanwhile new young girls were still being employed. The fight by the girls for justice was long and hard. The actions of the company are abhorrent. Perhaps we should not joke about “Elf and Safety”.

My nursing career has entailed much reading and writing. Journal articles, Standards, Guidelines, Reports all entail detailed, concise, clinical information. 

How nice it is, in retirement, to read books for sheer pleasure with no referencing.

Carolyn Wheatley

Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash

Poetry-hash

Limerick 1

There once was a woman from Dover
who thought that her whole life was over.
Now she’s discovered new ways
of enjoying her days.
And her nights are like living in clover.

Limerick 2

There once was a woman on tele
who was tempted to show off her belly.
One day, given the chance,
she started to dance,
and reminded those watching of jelly.

 

On a darker note ...

Some people know
what it means to be included:
                in the group
                in the class
                in the like-minded gathering.

There was a time,
back in nineteen fifty-five,
when I longed to be included.

But 1955 wasn’t my time.
It was my turn,
as one of the new boys
in our school boarding house,
to be ‘Got’.

A simple word, ‘got’ –
but it contained so much unhappiness.
                Name calling;
                Physical punishment for minor offences,
                                (some real, some imagined –
                                  any excuse would do);
                Text books being stolen;
                Completed homework being hidden;
                Not being served properly at meals –
                                sometimes making to do with scraps;
                Being ignored –
                                though some days that felt positive;
                Not being picked for teams.

Several months of being miserable,
but no adult could be told of it –
that would be ‘sneaking’,
something one dare not do.

Then, suddenly, the day came
when it was someone else’s turn.
I was included again – and expected to forget
the months just gone.

DP