Helen O’Connor was so relieved to have Paddy back home again. It didn’t matter that he was weak and shaky and quieter than she had ever seen him in her life. Paddy was back in his home where he belonged, and the nightmare of hospitals and doctors and the operation was over. Driving out of the Blackrock Clinic she had felt anxious about coping with Paddy being ill, but the staff on the ward had reassured her that he was making great progress and was totally fit to go home.
‘We are throwing him out of here,’ teased Staff Nurse Lucy O’Driscoll as they said their goodbyes. ‘But he’ll be back for his physio sessions and, when he is ready, he can join the Healthy Heart programme we run.’
At home, Helen felt like all the energy and adrenalin that had kept her going over the past eleven days had suddenly vanished, and she would love to have crawled up under the bedcovers for about two days to recharge her batteries, but there was far too much to be done now that she had Paddy home.
She had read over and over the notes from the hospital dietician, and had totally restocked the fridge with healthy heart foods. Paddy’s favourite butter spread on everything was a thing of the past, and his love of a decent steak a few nights a week was now going to be limited to once only. They both would have to get used to a new regime of fish and chicken and vegetables – and a new lifestyle. She had gone to the fishmonger’s and got some salmon fillets to bake in the oven for dinner with some of the baby new potatoes he loved.
Paddy, true to his word, had refused to sleep downstairs, and in a way she was relieved. She couldn’t imagine them not sharing a room or being together.
The first night he came home all the kids made a big fuss for his homecoming. Ronan, without complaint, cut the grass and weeded the flower beds, and Ciara had the house so spick and span and gleaming, it looked as if the Molly Maids had been in. Amy had bunches of flowers in every room, and had made a welcome-home cake with Paddy’s favourite lemon icing.
As Helen looked around the kitchen table she could see the stress and strain of the past few weeks suddenly beginning to lift. Even poor Barney couldn’t contain his excitement, and barked and wagged his tail for nearly twenty minutes when he saw Paddy walk through the hall door.
‘There will be plenty of walks, boy,’ Paddy promised the dog. He’d a strict exercise routine to follow now, which meant a long walk every day.
Helen tried not to get upset when she saw the changes that the operation had made to Paddy. He couldn’t concentrate or read a newspaper or watch the TV, and she caught him crying a few times. Some days he didn’t seem to want to do anything, and sat around like a sack of potatoes, irritating her. Mr Mulligan had reassured her that this was to be expected, and it would take a few weeks for him to return to normal. They had to be patient: his body had been through a major shock and was slowly trying to recover.
‘Don’t expect too much for the next five to six weeks,’ Lucy O’Driscoll had warned when she was packing up Paddy’s things to go home. Helen prayed that the Paddy of old would eventually be restored to her.
Fran and Tom and all the neighbours and their friends called to see Paddy, and Father Tom Doorly was a great support, spending time debating the meaning of life and change with him.
Paddy wasn’t a very religious man normally, but he seemed to have found a new spirituality since the bypass. And, of course, he still had his good friends to fall back on: Fintan Byrne and Noel Phelan and Sean Kennedy brought him down to the local during his second week home.
‘I’m on the mend,’ he reassured her when he came home drunk after one pint of shandy.
The news that Amy and Dan were back together again, and living in Dan’s apartment, had also lifted Paddy’s mood. Eddie and Carmel had phoned Paddy about it, equally delighted to see the young couple reunited. Because Amy couldn’t be there all the time any more, a night roster of family to stay with Sheila had been drawn up. Amy, Ciara, Ronan and Helen’s brother Tim’s boys Rob and John all took their turn. For the future, Helen’s brother David’s youngest, Caroline, was hoping to go to college in Dublin in the autumn, and the offer of free accommodation in return for keeping an eye on her grandmother was certainly very appealing to the young student.
Amy and Dan were determined to get married, and were scouting for a new place to have their wedding, which they hoped might be some time before the year was out.
‘We just want to be married,’ they candidly admitted, as they made plans for the future.
Helen gave thanks for the life-saving surgery that meant Paddy would at least be well and strong enough to proudly walk his elder daughter up the aisle when the time came.