Annals of non-oncology
My dear mother-in-law, Inga, had been feeling a bit low pretty much all summer, perhaps beginning in spring this year: A "flu" that kept recurring, pains in her shoulders and lower back, lack of appetite, general tiredness and exhaustion. She was put on a couple of anti-biotic treatments; the back pains where attributed to arthritis or trouble with the ischias nerve (="schiatica"?). Towards the end of summer, she could only walk with a walker. Anki -- my wife, Inga's daughter -- helped her schedule visits at the clinic, took her to non-scheduled visits at the emergency clinic, and even called an ambulance once or twice. Nothing real was ever found; "Here's a prescription for ibuprofen, take two of them three times a day for the pain".
On Sunday, October 16, Inga was in so bad shape that I drove her (and Anki) to the emergency clinic. (And dumped them there; my next drive was taking our son Max to a football game and doing duty as a physio. They won, IIRC.) After six hours waiting, total, with interruptions for blood samples and X-rays and stuff, they got to see a doctor who promptly admitted Inga as an in-patient at the hospital. When Anki finally got home in the evening, she reported that Inga had been fitted with an intravenous antibiotic right away. She also told me she and Inga didn't quite get the doctor's reaction: He (I think, might have been a she) had looked worried, apparently about how they would take this, but they were both only relieved -- "Great that this will finally be fixed!"...
The next day, Monday 17, Anki was informed that Inga had been moved to the big university hospital closer to the city centre -- to the cancer ward.
What she had wasn't a flu that wouldn't go away, or arthritis, but cancer of the lungs. By the time it was diagnosed (which in retrospect explains the emergency clinic doctor's behaviour, and probable surprise at Inga's and Anki's reaction), it had spread throughout her shoulders, neck, and lower back. She got radiation treatments -- five sessions, according to Anki -- and I think chemotherapy too, in between. After about a week, the staff began making arrangements to transfer her to another hospital. As Inga and Anki understood it, this was to free up beds for more urgent cases at the oncology clinic, while Inga recuperated from treatments and would be back for more later. Inga disliked their first suggestion, a place where her husband Pertti had been a few years before, and which she felt wasn't of as good a standard as perhaps it ought to be. There was some talk of another, smaller hospital closer by, where Pertti had also been for a while, but that apparently came to nothing.
On Wednesday, October 26, she was moved again: To a hospice.
Funnily -- so sad it's funny -- at least Anki still thought this was just because that's where there happened to be beds free, and that Inga would be back to the oncology ward for treatments that would, if not cure her, at least give her some more time. After a while, it dawned on us that that was not what this was about. We tried to spend as much time with her as possible (6 hrs 47 min on Sunday, according to my Google Maps timeline), but toward the end she slept a lot thanks to soporific drugs (and was probably pretty strung out on morphine).
On Monday, October 31, Inga Aho (neé Nygren, ex Riska) passed away. She would have been eighty in May next year.
She is survived by her husband Pertti Aho; her daughter Helen Ann-Christin ("Anki") Riska-Conrad; her grandsons Mathias Mustonen and Max Conrad; her
sisters Carita and Ulla and her brothers Klaus, Paul, and Stig, and their various children and grandchildren. The funeral will be in Helsinki on December 10.
Daaaymn, that was quick! :-(
On Sunday, October 16, Inga was in so bad shape that I drove her (and Anki) to the emergency clinic. (And dumped them there; my next drive was taking our son Max to a football game and doing duty as a physio. They won, IIRC.) After six hours waiting, total, with interruptions for blood samples and X-rays and stuff, they got to see a doctor who promptly admitted Inga as an in-patient at the hospital. When Anki finally got home in the evening, she reported that Inga had been fitted with an intravenous antibiotic right away. She also told me she and Inga didn't quite get the doctor's reaction: He (I think, might have been a she) had looked worried, apparently about how they would take this, but they were both only relieved -- "Great that this will finally be fixed!"...
The next day, Monday 17, Anki was informed that Inga had been moved to the big university hospital closer to the city centre -- to the cancer ward.
What she had wasn't a flu that wouldn't go away, or arthritis, but cancer of the lungs. By the time it was diagnosed (which in retrospect explains the emergency clinic doctor's behaviour, and probable surprise at Inga's and Anki's reaction), it had spread throughout her shoulders, neck, and lower back. She got radiation treatments -- five sessions, according to Anki -- and I think chemotherapy too, in between. After about a week, the staff began making arrangements to transfer her to another hospital. As Inga and Anki understood it, this was to free up beds for more urgent cases at the oncology clinic, while Inga recuperated from treatments and would be back for more later. Inga disliked their first suggestion, a place where her husband Pertti had been a few years before, and which she felt wasn't of as good a standard as perhaps it ought to be. There was some talk of another, smaller hospital closer by, where Pertti had also been for a while, but that apparently came to nothing.
On Wednesday, October 26, she was moved again: To a hospice.
Funnily -- so sad it's funny -- at least Anki still thought this was just because that's where there happened to be beds free, and that Inga would be back to the oncology ward for treatments that would, if not cure her, at least give her some more time. After a while, it dawned on us that that was not what this was about. We tried to spend as much time with her as possible (6 hrs 47 min on Sunday, according to my Google Maps timeline), but toward the end she slept a lot thanks to soporific drugs (and was probably pretty strung out on morphine).
On Monday, October 31, Inga Aho (neé Nygren, ex Riska) passed away. She would have been eighty in May next year.
She is survived by her husband Pertti Aho; her daughter Helen Ann-Christin ("Anki") Riska-Conrad; her grandsons Mathias Mustonen and Max Conrad; her
sisters Carita and Ulla and her brothers Klaus, Paul, and Stig, and their various children and grandchildren. The funeral will be in Helsinki on December 10.
Daaaymn, that was quick! :-(
