10) The Hunger Strike

A blog about myself, daughter of an extreme hoarder parent who fell over on Christmas Day 2025 and broke 3 ribs. He’s currently in hospital thinking he can come home soon... He has terminal oesophageal cancer, kidney function issues, a bladder and a chest infection, asthma, diabetes, skin cancer and he’s 95. Meanwhile I’m running around like a blue-arsed fly trying to possibly make things safe at his house in case he gets sent home, yet being acutely aware he will have an uncanny ability to know if anything’s missing and he won’t be pleased. I have a job and family of my own. Slowly but surely, I’m losing the plot.

                                          

Today I took my other daughter to see dad in hospital.  We decided to go after tea as it was easier to park. We arrived at 7pm in the car park and went up to the ward.

He was sitting in the bedside chair. He saw us and said 'I'm on a Hunger Strike!'

'Ah!' I said. 'Let me get a chair a minute.' I went to the corridor to take 2 of a stack of plastic chairs and we sat down. 'Why are you on hunger strike then?' I asked.

'Well the food is diabolical. It's dreadful, the rest of the ward had sausage and chips but they wouldn't let me have any because of my stent. Ridiculous. Poppycock. I've never heard such rubbish. They gave me damn tuna sandwiches - dry and awful - there they are. See.' He pointed to a mainly eaten pack of sarnies - see above - only the crusts were remaining. 'Do you want them?' he asked, pushing them at me.

'Er no! I'll pass thanks,' I said.

'Well they'll go to waste as well then.' he said, grumpily. 'You have them.' he said to his granddaughter - the first time he'd acknowledged she was there. She politely declined the offer.

He carried on about the food was too spicy and gave him oral thrush - then proceeded to explain what thrush was. He then hacked up a few greenies, spitting them into a tissue, which he dropped in the sandwich packet. Disgusting.

He went on talking about how he was 100% sure they were plotting to kill him and how he kept hearing his name via feedback through his hearing aid. They were, he said, finding everyone with his name by their net worth and saying some were not worth finishing off because they were worth under £2000. He again mentioned the drain and needing his chimney swept. He wanted to be there himself so wanted to wait until he came home.

Not wanting to go back to that conversation again, I asked him if he was going to eat his yoghurt as that was surely easy to eat and he said he hadn't eaten much for tea.

'Well once you've got my spoon then I can eat it, but you haven't got my spoon yet have you?'

'Well you haven't asked for a spoon.' I pointed out.

'Yes I did. Of course I did. When you first came in and I asked you to get one from the table and you went to get one.'

'No dad.' (Yes I know it's a small thing but seriously, why make me out to be the ignorant one. He's done it all my life and I'm not putting up with his shit anymore. no matter how small.) I said 'you didn't ask. if you had, then I'd have found you one.' I didn't point out in fact the first thing he said was he was on hunger strike. 'You definitely didn't ask.' I said adamant he wasn't going to bully me anymore.

He threw his arms up in the air in dramatic fashion 'YES I DID ASK' he bellowed, 'Oh WHY must you turn EVERYTHING into an argument ALL THE TIME!' He then turned to his granddaughter and said 'I did ask didn't I?' She, worried what to say said she didn't know.

Infuriated I went off and got a spoon from the kitchen and handed it to him.

'There you go,' he said 'Not so difficult was it?' I sat on my hands to prevent them doing damage. My daughter instinctively grabbed one hand (like her sister did two days ago) and squeezed it firmly in a 'mum you've got this. Don't worry I'm with you.' kind of a way. I took a huge lungful of air as he ate his yoghurt. I looked at my daughter and she blew me a kiss. 

Thank you God for daughters.

'Look dad,' I said, in a stupidly vain attempt to get him to say something meaningful.to her, to communicate with her, to ask her about herself. 'Your other granddaughter's come to see you today.'

He glanced at her. 'Yes is she going to a party?'

She replied she wasn't. He said well she had come home from Swansea so he assumed it was for a party. That was the only thing he's said to her since September when she went to Uni. She said she felt like he was just looking through her for the whole hour we were there.

We left shortly after that. She grabbed my hand and we walked out. 'Mum, you OK?' she asked. 'That was SO weird wasn't it? What planet is he from - I couldn't make any sense whatsoever of what he was talking about... He thinks the doctors want to harvest him for parts... What the f...'

I agreed.  We drove home trying to make sense of everything, but we couldn't. She said if she hadn't heard it herself she wouldn't have believed it.

 

What's making me happy? Garfy - a young cat who I've not seen before, sitting outside my window demanding I pet him.

What is making me cry? The social worker from the hospital discharge team...

What's making me furious? Narcissistic idiots who are needlessly very, very rude.

What have I done to relax? Taken the day off work to do nothing at all and staying in bed until 09:03 :).

Interesting finds the mini oven in the pic above of my car, Freddie - found on its side in the living room at the house, being used as a coffee table.