Kitty, Mahe and Tatiana

Update in Kitty 7th October 22

It has been a while since my last update on Kitty’s recovery since her operation in July.

I have been back in Menton for over two and a half weeks. The first couple of weeks was spent making sure that she made it to her appointments with her Speech Therapist, Physiotherapist and hairdresser. The nurse visits twice a day, first thing in the morning and in the late evening when she is connected up to her food trolley for the night. This of course restricts her movement leaving her quite depressed. The pipe down her nose and into her stomach does not help as she finds it hard to breathe and her throat fills up with phlegm.

Kitty still finds it very difficult to talk, this really frustrates her no end. The Speech Therapist is finding it difficult to make any progress as long as the nose tube is in place. She has been asked to try to swallow some gelatine at first and then move on to a bit of yogurt. Even managed to sneak in a few spoonfuls of beer?!

We have been for a couple of walks together, one in Menton and another longer one in Roquebrune. It is great to see Kitty with her camera taking photographs, which she loves to do. Kitty has also started her clay modelling again and can spend hours working on the head. She does her exercises and cycling every morning which has helped regain her fitness a bit.

When I arrived back, her operation to fit a feed tube directly into her stomach was scheduled for the 10th October. Due to the efforts of her son, Nico it was brought forward to the 3rd October which was this Monday. Blood tests and PCR tests were carried out by her nurse Annabel last week, together with an echo which was done at the Nice hospital. A long way to go for something that took a few minutes.

As all systems were go, I took Kitty into the hospital in Nice on Monday. We had to be there by 8am and after finding where we had to go she was taken into a room to be prepared for the operation which was scheduled for 11.15.

An intravenous drip was fitted, blood pressure taken and she was changed into the operation garment, paper shoes and netting for her hair. What was very surprising was that they let me stay with Kitty while all this was going on. After signing a load of forms, we were told that the operation would take place earlier and that Kitty should get ready. An antibiotic drip and a calming drip were administered and no sooner that they were finished, a trolley was brought to the room which Kitty climbed onto and lay down. We went to the lifts and it was then time for me to leave the hospital and for Kitty to take a second lift that took her to the operating theatre.

The operation was carried out with a local anaesthetic. And after the operation Kitty was taken to the same room to recuperate. Nico went to see her in the afternoon as only one visitor is allowed in any given day. Kitty had slept for most of the afternoon. As she was in a lot of pain she was given a bit of morphine to help her.

On the Tuesday afternoon I collected Mahe from school and took him home as a favour to Nico as he had a meeting with a client and Tatiana was away on business for a few days. I then went to the hospital. Kitty looked like she was in a lot of pain but otherwise OK. She was upset as she still had the nose tube in her as she had expected to have it out by then. She was being fed by the new tube in her stomach. The nurses were making sure that all was well before they took out the nose tube. Kitty felt time dragging as she didn’t have a lot to do. She had an audio book to listen to and I downloaded some songs for her to listen to.

I stayed with Kitty for some time and after saying good bye to her, I drove to Nico’s house where I spent the night with him and Mahe. We drove into Nice to collect an Indian takeaway for dinner and while we were there Nico showed me his office overlooking the Port of Nice. It was great to spend some time with him, catching up with all his news. White we were chatting I received a very happy text from Kitty saying that the nurse had taken the tube in her nose out. Kitty was so happy as she has been living with it in, since the middle of July.

The next morning, Wednesday, I had a text from Kitty letting me know that she would be ready to collect at 11.00 am. After a difficult time trying to find a place to park I met up with Nico and we went up to her room to take her home. The nurses were still doing something with Kitty so we had to wait a while before being allowed to leave.

Kitty spent the afternoon taking it easy after we collected her medicines from the Chemist and made an appointment with her Physiotherapist.

After a good nights sleep Kitty is now ready to take on the next stage of her recovery and independence.

As Nico has lent me his e-Mountain Bike, I have been able to have a few enjoyable rides to places like Casteillon, Sospel, Gorbio, St Agnes and today Eze. Beautiful ride, very hilly, but ably assisted by the e-bike.

I hope that you have enjoyed the update.