The long goodbye

It’s been a whirlwind weekend. I got here yesterday afternoon. More or less straight to Dad’s hospice. He is comfortable. He is on morphine. He cannot hear my sister and me. He cannot see us – his eyes open occasionally but do not focus on anything.

The nurses tell us he showed some reactions – they put some football on TV. He seemed more alert. When they washed him, he stroked the nurse’s face.

But by the time we go there, he was away. Occasionally, his eyes would open, and he would start to convulse for a minute or so. But no more meaningful interaction than that.

We played some of his favourite music. We talked to him. We told him we were there. We told him we loved him. We said that if he wanted to leave, no one would hold it against him.

That was yesterday. Today, everything had changed. He was no longer with us at all. Sleep. Death rattle.

And yet, it has been a privilege. We played a lot more of his favourite music: Frank Sinatra, Ella, Neil Young. Even Phil Collins made it onto the playlist. Then an old family friend turned up with his guitar. We both played throughout the afternoon. Although he is away, we have honoured the beautiful man. We laughed. We cried.

Now we are back at my sister’s. We do not know if he will be alive tomorrow. We are exhausted. We are miserable. We are happy. We are lucky. We love him. We know he loved us. We are lonely. We are together. We are drunk.

It sucks. And yet it's beautiful. We’re lucky to be able to say goodbye. 

On my way

As I type this out, I am on the Eurostar on my way to say goodbye to Dad. He is now in a palliative care hospice. It looks lovely from the photos I have seen and means there is no more pain for him to suffer.

In my mind, I had grieved the passing of my dad. A while back, he stopped recognising us. For months now, and he has been fading away and spending most of his days asleep. He has not been in the distress I have seen other Alzheimer’s sufferers have to cope with: a saving grace. But, all that seemed to be left was his cage of a body.

And yet, the closer I get to him, the more I am grasping that we are really going to lose him.

It will be a relief in many ways: especially for him.

But it will mean be a new wave of grief. I naively had persuaded myself that this would not be the case: that I was over it. I was trying to kid myself that I could take a Buddhist-style approach of accepting the situation. I do not possess that level of enlightenment or intelligence. It fucking hurts.

Lovely friends had reached out and had told me that I had to speak to him and hold him before he goes. I am grateful for that advice. Thank you, guys.

It also means I can see my beloved sister who has been shouldering the whole thing since dad had his accident nearly two weeks ago.

I am not going to lie: there is an element of fear at what I am going to encounter but I know this will be dispelled as soon as I am with dad. 

Dad

It's all very surreal. Especially from a distance.

My father is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. As far as I can tell, he has been for the best part of five years.

 

He was a rock to me: an intelligent and wise man. Complete integrity and an impeccable sense of fairness. Alzheimer’s took away his mind. Slowly, scarily, ruthlessly. All that remains is the shell of the man I love and respect so much.

 

He lives in a specialised home near Paris. I live in London. He cannot communicate. We are strangers to him, albeit harmless strangers. I cannot say for sure if he still has any ability left to string ideas together or if it is all a jumble of feelings and fleeting shadows of memories. I just don’t know. The saving grace for us is that he has not been in pain or distressed.

 

Until now.

 

On Valentine’s Day he broke his leg – his femur. It took three days for him to be operated on. Three days of pain during which it would appear he was only allowed fairly rudimentary pain killers. It must have been hell for him – a thick fog of pain and incomprehension.

 

In all honesty, I was hoping he would be able to slip away during the anaesthetic. It makes no sense for someone in late stages of dementia to have to go through massive pain. Ultimately what we all want is for Dad to go peacefully.

 

Now he is in a hospital with no points of reference whatsoever. While his sense of routine is probably skeletal if there at all, this is just too cruel. He needs oxygen and has yet to eat properly since the operation two days ago.

 

Three possibilities arise:

1.     we lose him at the hospital;

2.     he can longer walk - in which case he will go into palliative care;

3.     he can walk and he will have to undergo re-education and return to the home: another fall a strong possibility.

 

Not the greatest trio of eventualities.

 

My poor sister is the only family member who is in Paris at the moment, so she has had to deal with all the admin and comms with the hospital and the rest of us in the UK. She has been doing incredibly but obviously it has taken its toll on her – seeing her father living through such trauma. A traumatic experience in itself for her.

 

Alzheimer's really is a vicious bastard.

 

This is in no way linked to the usual subject matter of the blog.  At a push, you could argue that it does touch on the unfairness of life. I needed to write it though. For my dad. For me.

 

 

 

My lovely Kirsten

My friend and erstwhile colleague Kirsten has been in touch with me. She worked at my previous school’s office. She was one of three from the office team who left after being treated appallingly – all suffered mental distress, all were signed off with work-related stress issues. You would think that such a pattern would cause alarm bells to ring out. The board of governors and council have done nothing. Not in the public interest apparently.

K has allowed me to paraphrase a disciplinary letter she was sent; and to share a comment she posted online.

_____________

Firstly, the letter: on 04.03.22, K returned to work after an extended leave of many months after a breakdown caused by the head’s treatment of her. Sound familiar? Later on that day, K was hand-delivered an ‘Informal Disciplinary’ letter.

The onus of the letter was the fallout of an ‘unauthorised absence from work’ on 20.05.21 (ten months earlier…) On that day, K had walked out in a high state of anxiety after being spoken to in an unacceptable manner – it had been the final straw after a long period of straws being thrust at her. Rather than completely lose her demeanour, and do something she could later regret, K decided to leave.

At this return to work meeting on 04.03.23, K, an HR rep and the head were present. The head explained that K’s behaviour and language had been inappropriate. She further accused her of demonstrating similar conduct of this nature towards other members of staff and parents on previous occasions. K was a very popular member of staff at the school. I am not aware of her having had any issues with other members of staff apart from the head – who is particularly difficult to get along with.

Nearly ten months after this incident, the head decided to take informal disciplinary action against K and to give her a verbal warning.

She listed a set of standards K was to follow:

-       model positive and professional behaviours at all times;

-       self-regulate and maintain professionalism;

-       interact and behave appropriately with all members of staff and school families;

-       manage workload effectively;

-       communicate regularly with the Head about feelings with the offer of support if needed, the head explicitly stated that her door was always open[1].

The head followed her open-door policy statement/offer of support with the following threat: should K breach any of the discussed standards in the future, the head would not hesitate in taking further action against her.

Such a kindly and caring soul…

_____________

To the comment K made on social media after one of my posts on 05.03.23:

Funny how as the more time passes the braver and angrier I get.

I wish I could have my ‘back to work capability’ meeting now! I would have stood up and clapped her for the Oscar winning performance she made in front of the HR lapdog.

I was accused of lying, being unprofessional with colleagues and parents amongst other things (all absolute rubbish) and was told if I did manage to return to work I’d have a desk set up in her office so she could monitor me at all times! Perfect for someone with huge anxiety and work-related stress issues…

An hour after returning home after the meeting, I had a hand delivered disciplinary letter regarding my 2-hour unauthorised absence from work on the day I walked out. If I hadn’t left the building on that occasion, I probably would have been carted off in an ambulance wearing a straitjacket… No joke!

She also had the nerve to say that the office had run smoothly and efficiently since I’d been off on sick leave; things had never been better she said. This is definitely not what I’d been told by staff and parents[2]!

Anyway, that’s my RANT!! Love, xxx

_____________

There we have it folks: another testimonial from someone who experienced a similar traumatic experience to mine at that school. It gets easier to deal with, but it does not go away. I would like to thank K for sharing. It takes guts. Everyone knows she is a good person – the accusations made against her were disgusting. 

Wishing you all the best my love, xxx

---

[1] I had a similar offer after my return to work. Obviously, the head was the last person I would ever have sought out support from. All so depressingly familiar. The hypocrisy of it all.

[2] Numerous ex-colleagues and parents have corroborated this.

More fobbing off...

On January 21^st in a post called ‘Public Interest’, I mentioned that I had been in touch with the council linked to the previous school I worked at. The Services for Schools Communications Support team had seen fit to include the following on their website: 

The service received from the (…) comms team has been hugely professional and supportive at a time when the school was subject to false allegations with the potential to cause significant reputational damage to our community. They worked closely with us to negotiate an extremely stressful and time-pressured period and were very generous with their advice and knowledge. They were calm, knowledgeable and reassuring, and provided much-appreciated direction through the entire situation.

Nice…

On 21.01, I sent them this:

 

Dear [Schools Communications person],

 

I was shocked to see a testimonial from [my previous head] on [weblink].

 

In the interest of transparency, I would like to point out that the allegations made against [previous head] have in no way been proven to be false and are still currently being scrutinised by several organisations.

 

It may be an idea for you to -at the very least- remove that part of the quote. I am sure you would not want to be accused of collusion.

 

Regards,

 

Alex Gwinnett

 

Having received no response, I followed on with this on 05.02:

 

Dear [Schools Communications person],

 

I sent you an e-mail on 21.01.23 (see below). Not having received a response, I am writing to you afresh to ask for a comment. Having statements such as these on a webpage that anyone can access indicates a lack of objectivity.  

 

Best regards,

 

Alex Gwinnett

Finally, on 09.02, I received this response:

 

Dear Mr Gwinnett

 

Thank you for your emails dated 21/1/23 and 5/2/23. 

 

We would like to confirm that the quote you refer to has nothing in it to suggest it relates to any particular person or incident.

 

Best regards

 

Communications Team

[Local] Council

Fortunately, I was in a good mood that day, and my initial reaction was amused bewilderment at the total refusal to engage with the ethical nature of the issue. While it was not quite the response I was expecting, at least they got back in touch I suppose.

Here is my rejoinder:

 

Dear Communications Team,

 

Thank you for your email of 09.02.23. Fortunately, I was in a good mood that day, and my initial reaction was amused bewilderment; rather than frustration and anger at the total refusal to engage with the ethical nature of the issue that I alerted you to in previous correspondence.  

 

While I appreciate that the statement on your webpage has ‘nothing in it to suggest it relates to any particular person or incident’, this does little to reassure those of us who have suffered under the headship of its author.

 

I appreciate that it is your job to offer PR support to the borough’s schools. However, in my eyes and those of my ex-colleagues from that particular school, it would be preferable for those services to be provided to more deserving recipients.

 

Best regards,

 

Alex

Rant

Three years and three months ago I had a nervous breakdown. It left me with post-traumatic stress disorder and caused lasting damage.

Two years and a half ago, a large group of ex-colleagues and other school community members (who also suffered from/or bore witness to mental distress caused by the same person) attempted to blow the whistle on this person.

This is usually the remit of the board of governors. However, the chair of the governing body claimed that the accusations that were being made included too much criticism of them – I maintain that they are in cahoots with the head. Therefore, the council asked a supposedly independent party to investigate it. Despite a lot of evidence proving the opposite, they claimed that this was not in the public interest.

Recent developments have caused me to ask the council to reconsider. So far, they are trying to cling to the initial decision of the ‘independent’ investigator. However, both my union and Protect are of the opinion that there is a strong case for our whistleblowing effort and that it is very much in the public interest. What is more, more victims have come forward (see post of 22/01: interview). A clear pattern of victimisation continues.

Why? How can it be allowed to happen?

I have found that talking and writing this blog has really helped and has been a decent distraction when my head is in a dark place. But comes a time where it all feels like too much. Too much injustice.

The despair will pass. It always does. However, it would pass one hell of a lot quicker were this whole shitshow to be looked into the way it should have been years ago. How many people will suffer long-lasting damage because the establishment is too scared to admit it has made a mistake? Or does it just not care? Collusion, cowardice, lack of integrity, dereliction of duty of care...