A Bit Of A Concern

I tried ringing brother-in-law John last Thursday, that being my sister, Maureen's, birthday. She's still in the home she was admitted to a few weeks back, and I already had a strong sense she was likely to stay in there from John's account of her dementia. Anyway, since I haven't got a number for the home, and I'm not exactly sure how Maureen might react to a direct call, I was calling John to get the latest on Maureen's health, and his own, and to find out whether the card we sent arrived on time, and how he would get it to her, given the fact that the restrictions resulting from Covid, and his own issues regarding mobility, meant that he couldn't actually visit her. In the event it turned out I couldn't get through to John that evening, or the next, or the next.

The odd thing was that I got a few answers to my calls, but they seemed to come from random strangers who generally didn't answer coherently as the line was bad or emphatically told me I had the wrong number. Another peculiar thing was that I rarely got the usual sound of the phone at the other end ringing. On the two or three occasions I did, the ringing was curtailed after 30 seconds or so and the familiar recorded voice told me something to the effect that the phone was not in use at that time. When I found someone to talk to at the other end it followed a period of silence once I'd dialled and the voice would abruptly break in (something that happened with John once or twice in earlier calls.)

This continued until yesterday. I wasn't particularly worried about not getting through, assuming there was something wrong with John's phone, or the whole system was wobbly. Of course, we felt some concern - which was mounting - but thought that if something really terrible had happened then someone would have got in touch. Then it occurred to me that I had Cheryl, my niece's, phone number somewhere and that it made sense to ring her to see if she could shed light on what was going on.

It turned out she could. John was hospitalised early in the month - I think just after the last time I phoned - with quite serious bleeding on the brain and a couple of other problems. He'd been put on oxygen for a time, but generally he's recovering. Fortunately Maureen isn't worried about not hearing from him as Cheryl and Caroline keep telling her she spoke to him just recently and Maureen happily accepts this, not being able to remember otherwise. Cheryl reckons that the sensible thing now would be for him to sell the house and buy a smaller property customised to his lack of mobility and that Louise could then look after him as a carer. This sounded good to me. It's a relief to know that the good sense of my nieces is likely to prevail eventually. It's a further relief that Cheryl clearly expects a full-ish recovery from John.

The only worry now relates to the phone calls. I told Cheryl about them and it occurred to both of us that since I was calling the land-line to the house the situation sounded a tad iffy. Has someone got in there for temporary occupation? Unlikely, I know, but not impossible, and it would explain some of the oddities of the calls. Cheryl suggested that it would be good for Louise to check the house and I heartily agreed. For some reason, probably irrational, I'm spooked on this one. But it's good to know that John and Maureen are in good hands over there.