[stepurhan]

It has not been a good week.

Monday night I'm out as usual (I ring bells and then go to the pub with the other ringers afterwards) when I get a call from my wife. One of her brothers has been taken seriously ill and been rushed up to hospital. Nothing I can do to help but she heads up there and waits until a doctor is able to tell her how he is. As my home town is having a mini flu epidemic at the moment this means she doesn't get home until 3:30am with the news he is "stabilised".

The brother in question lived with, and was the main carer for, her mother (solely on grounds of her age). She is also under the weather and when my wife visits Wednesday morning she insists on calling her GP out who diagnoses Bronchitis and prescribes antibiotics. My wife stays over Wednesday night but sleeps poorly (her brother's sleeping arrangements are less than ideal) so, having checked her mother is OK and has what she needs to hand she comes home to catch some sleep and gather items to make her Thursday night stop over more comfortable.

Thursday night I see her for 30 minutes from work and put her in a taxi over at 8:15. At 8:20 I receive a very distressed phone call. Her mother won't ever need someone to stay over with her again. I rush straight over and am with her as we deal with the procedures UK law requires. An unexpected death at home in the UK requires the following. First a doctor has to certify the death. They then call in the police who have to satisfy themselves there is no evidence of foul play. When they are happy the coroner's office is called to collect the body. This takes up to midnight.

I've spent most of the last two days dealing with the phone calls resulting from this. I took control of the home phone and her mobile and made sure my wife only took the phone calls where only she could do it (which was virtually none as her police statement at the scene supplied me with most of the details she knew that I didn't) This included me making the calls to her sister and other brother, a process that was a bit like s twisted practical joke (with the seriously ill brother they expected bad news but the news I had felt like I was saying "Ha! Fooled you!") Fortunately the GP visit so close to the end has saved the need for a post mortem (which could have been as late as Monday)

Today my wife has actually eaten (though not a lot) and she seems generally better. The next few weeks are going to be hard though, with a lot of stuff to sort out.