Christine was in good hands with St Columba's help

Published on Wednesday 12 May 2010 09:42

THE magnificent mountain scenery and the crisp fresh air were doing wonders for Bobby Clark's health. Attending a sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps, he was finally beginning to recover from a bout of tuberculosis.

He was just 19 and had been struck by the virulent illness, and as all the sanatoriums in Scotland were full of TB cases – it was the early 1950s – he was shipped out to the Swiss town of Davos.

And it was there that his life changed forever. Sitting quietly, lost in his memories, the 77-year-old recalls: "I was going for a blood test at the lab . . . she was going for a series of tests there too, and she had a long, pink dressing gown that zipped the whole way down, and she had honey-coloured long hair, and the softest blue eyes you would ever see . . ." He pauses for a moment, lost in wonder. "If there ever was anything like love at first sight, that was Christine."

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From that moment the couple's romance blossomed. And when they returned to Edinburgh plans were made to get married and from the day they were wed, Bobby vowed that it would be his life's work to care for and protect Christine.

It was a pledge he kept for decades. But when, half a century later, Christine developed Alzheimer's and then terminal cancer, Bobby found it hard to let others help care for his beloved wife – he felt he'd failed her.

Fortunately, at St Columba's Hospice, he found staff who offered such gentle, understanding care that, after decades of looking after Christine himself, he instantly trusted them.

Sitting in a quiet room at the hospice, he recalls the day the couple first met: "We were 19 and that was the early 1950s. TB was rife in this country and all the sanatoriums in Scotland were full, so the government brought in a scheme whereby the young cases who were not too serious were sent to Switzerland. We were in Sanatorium Wolfgang in Davos."

They married in 1957, moving to Viewforth Terrace and then to Corstorphine when their children Colin and Alison were born.

It was a traditional marriage, with Christine raising the family and Bobby continuing to work as a civil servant in the Scottish Office – and they were blissfully happy, he says. "I remember Christine's cousin telling me that the only thing Christine wanted was to get married to a nice person and have a nice house and family and I think she had that. Nowadays people would laugh at you, but we were so contented, we did everything together," he says.

"She was a wonderful person, gentle and kind, everybody liked Christine. We have a nun friend who knew her and she said she was a saint and she wasn't joking. Everybody thinks that about their wives but Christine was special, and I would have exchanged places with her without hesitation if I could have done – she didn't deserve to have eight years of Alzheimer's."

Around the turn of the century, Christine's memory had started to fail and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She then discovered she had colon cancer, and although an operation kept the disease at bay for a time, it reappeared in her bones.

It was as the pain grew worse that St Columba's Hospice appeared on the scene. "I've always looked after Christine, the family used to say I wouldn't let the wind blow on her, so when I couldn't look after her myself, it was a terrible wrench. I was very upset about having to hand her care over to somebody else, but the moment they came round they were tremendous," he says.

Staff considered having Christine visit St Columba's as an outpatient in the day hospice, but her Alzheimer's meant she would often wander. Instead, community palliative care nurse Alison Hall began to make weekly visits to the family home.

"For Christine with her Alzheimer's, it wasn't easy for her to deal with strangers but with Alison, the moment she came in, there was a rapport," says Bobby. "She felt happy seeing her, and whatever Alison said was right. She visited every week and she was there on the phone and on her mobile if I ever needed any help, because she knew what a state I was in about Christine, and what she meant to me."

Bobby continued to care for Christine round the clock until her condition deteriorated too greatly for him to cope and she moved to Pentland Hill Nursing Home in Gylemuir Road, where Bobby visited her every single day for 19 months. But St Columba's involvement didn't stop there.

Alison continued to visit Christine at the home every week, and Bobby says: "The main thing, apart from dealing with the pain, was that she had the confidence of Christine, and Christine believed in her. Alison had that rapport, and what's more, she looked after me."

One Tuesday in March 2008, as nursing home staff were getting Christine up for the day, she collapsed. The family rushed to her side, but she was in a coma by the time they arrived. Bobby, Colin and Alison stayed by her bedside.

He says: "We stayed all night and took it in turns and they gave us a recliner chair. Once as I was sitting at her bedside she opened her eyes and looked at me and said something. I remember saying to her, 'Don't worry, you'll go straight to heaven'."

Just a few days later, when Bobby had gone home to shower and change, she slipped peacefully away.

Bobby was devastated to have lost the love of his life, and found himself battling depression as he contemplated life without Christine at his side. Fortunately, St Columba's didn't abandon him after his wife's death. He was offered support from the hospice's counsellor, Pauline Gibb.

He says: "It really hit me hard and they offered me counselling and of course, macho man says 'I don't need counselling', but the family said I should give it a try, and I've never regretted that. She was very good and I had about eight sessions, it was helpful just to talk, and I hadn't talked to friends or relatives like that.

"It was helping me to come to terms with things. It never will be the same, but it was helpful and it kept me in touch with the hospice."

Sadly, it was not the last time Bobby was to be involved with St Columba's. In July last year his sister Pat, 81, also developed cancer.

Although it was another traumatic time, the knowledge that the hospice would offer the best of care helped ease the pain, he says: "I said to her 'the hospice was great for Christine', and they had a palliative nurse who came out to see her and she went down pretty rapidly. She came into the hospice and she was only here for a couple of weeks, but again, it was very peaceful. Just coming in the first time was not good, but it wasn't too bad – I think that was because I knew she was in good hands.

"They have this holistic approach, they looked after the whole family – and that must give a lot of comfort to the patient to know that their loved ones are being looked after. They're so understanding."