The weakest link

It was a Monday evening when Mum was taken from the rest home to the hospital, and one of only a handful of days this year on which I hadn't been to see her

The last time she'd been in, she suffered a stroke in her hospital bed. She was seriously ill again.

My hospital visits were interrupted a week later by what seemed at the time like a vicious two-day flu, but may have been some form of exhaustion on my part. I came right and, after 45 minutes searching for a park, arrived at her bedside again on a Thursday.

I had been there five minutes when one of Mum's doctors appeared with a consent form. They needed to perform a painful and potentially risky diagnostic procedure and they needed my approval. I read the form, listened to the doctor and - what else could I do? - signed it. I held her while it was done and she moaned in pain. Then I went home and got bank-scammed.