Yesterday, Meg appeared to be in a deep doze and/or sleeping for most of the day. But then sometime after 4.00pm the two young care workers arrived, and a Physician Associate arrived from the GP practice. She quickly diagnosed a pressure sore and said she would make onward reference to a District Nurse which would be extremely valuable. We do know that bedsores (or pressure sores as they are more properly called) can be managed if treated very promptly but can be nasty if left to fester, as it were. The care workers and the PA agreed that we could put leg's ankle on a little neck pillow that we have in such a way that her heel might not rub on the bed. The whole of this syndrome has its origins in the fact that Meg finds it very difficult to bend her knees, particularly on the right as they are in a fixed position in her chair all day long and she is not using her legs to walk. The interesting thing is that in the presence of the two young car workers with whom she is always incredibly relaxed, she seemed to wake up a little and even managed a smile and some minimal communication. I managed to get the whole of a 200g pot of some Protein Chocolate mousse inside her and then for tea, she had a fair proportion of apple crumble, yogurt and ice-cream so I was relieved to get some food inside her (although her needs were low) but getting her to drink fluids is still a little problematic. The Speech and Language Therapist (SALT) person, if and when they arrive, may be able to recommend a thickening agent to enable Meg to swallow fluids a bit more easily. The care workers are coming an hour earlier at 7.00am rather than 8.00am which always makes life a bit of a rush around first thing in the morning.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a deal to return Hamas-held hostages in the Gaza Strip has been reached. It now looks as though the deal will now be approved by the Israeli War Cabinet and, eventually, the full Israeli Cabinet. But at least one of the far-right ultra nationalist members of the Israeli coalition government is probably poised to resign whereas another is threatening to vote for a resumption of hostilities as soon as the first phase has been completed. There are still a lot of negotiations to be undertaken before the second and third phases of the agreement can be implemented but, focusing on the short term, there should be a cease fire in effect from Sunday and we should the release of at least some of the Israeli hostages (women, children and the infirm) as well as the release of some Palestinian Hamas fighters. Two days before Israel and Hamas reached a long-awaited cease-fire and hostage-release deal, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a rebellious far-right Israeli minister, issued a video statement calling on another far-right coalition partner to join forces and scupper the agreement by quitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Mr. Ben-Gvir also asserted that these far-right coalition parties had used their political leverage to thwart a similar deal 'time after time' over the past year, causing an uproar. Critics of Mr. Netanyahu’s government, including many of the families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, have repeatedly accused the prime minister of sabotaging past efforts to reach a deal in order to preserve his coalition — the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history — and remain in power. Mr. Netanyahu and his loyalists have blamed Hamas for past failures to reach a deal. The current agreement was expected to gain government approval even without the support of the two far-right parties, since a majority of cabinet members are in favour of it. But the fracas caused by Mr. Ben Gvir’s comments underscored the resurgent fissures in Israeli politics and society following the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which prompted the war, and the widening fault lines within the Israeli government. Another far-right cabinet member, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, called the agreement 'bad and dangerous to Israel’s national security' and said he absolutely opposed it. But he did not explicitly threaten to leave the government. Describing the emerging deal as an Israeli 'surrender' to Hamas, Mr. Ben-Gvir played on Israeli emotions in his statement, saying that the terms of the agreement would erase the achievements of the war in Gaza that were gained with the blood of Israeli soldiers. But the narrative being broadcast by Mr. Netanyahu and his aides says the opposite. An Israeli government official contradicted Mr. Ben-Gvir’s assertions this week, saying Hamas had only put on a façade of negotiating in the past rounds of talks and had engaged seriously this time largely because of Israel’s military achievements.
Our domestic help called around today and was as helpful as always. But Meg was asleep during all of the morning and only managed the briefest of smiles and reactions when our help came to say goodbye to Meg at the end of the morning. This I found particularly upsetting but the carers who were present were very kindly and supportive of me. I had a pasta type lunch which I did not really enjoy and threw most of it away - nor did I manage to get any of it down Meg. Later in the afternoon, I did get Meg to ingest a small chocolate mousse and a very small fromage fraiche but drinks have so far proved illusive. This morning was Meg was asleep I took the reply to one my oldest Spanish friends and forwarded it to another of our friends (these two friends being Erasmus students of ours in decades long gone by and are now our life long friends) This latter friend had married her tutor (who, incidentally, was very good to when I spent a term teaching Information Technology to Public Administration students in the Complutense University of Madrid) but he had died over the last year. So I know we both understand the pain and grief of separation from a life partner and at some time again we may well meet up again in Spain.
© Mike Hart [2025]