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Longer than the opening paragraph suggests.
Tuesday, March 18th, 2014 11:07 amHello, all! Atent dead yet, just been fiendishly busy at work and haven’t felt like updating at weekends or evenings. As it is, this is just going to be a few lines of catch up before I plough on with more of your Earth work.
We’re worried about Mum again. I think the dementia has progressed to a point where it is borderline as to whether she can continue to live at home. I’ve not seen her personally (I must make time to go up and visit), but her personality sounds to have changed and she is going through the aggressive, vicious stage to the point where she’s been hitting the dog (which has taken it with reasonable grace, thus far) and having tantrums that involve throwing her meals on the floor.
Yesterday I was bombarded with texts and phone calls from the family because they had to take her back to A&E. She has developed the habit of picking her nose (charming) and this brought on an unstoppable nosebleed that had to be cauterised. My niece tells me the bedroom looked like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre had been staged there.
This morning it’s set off again, because she blew her nose, having forgotten that she shouldn’t. Apparently if it keeps up, the hospital has said they’ll keep her in for a while. My sister is thinking about placing her in respite for a week or so, to allow all concerned to have a rest. I fear that we might soon have to bow to the inevitable and have her put in care, though the council and health services will resist if they think there is the vaguest chance of keeping Mum at home. The emphasis these days is on keeping dementia patients at home, but my sister is the sole wage earner and Mum would be on her own too long. We can’t depend upon her to remember to eat or drink; she doesn’t want to much of the time even when there is someone there to coax her and that brings on the bursts of aggressive behaviour.
I guess things will come to a head in a couple of months (if not before) when my sister goes into hospital herself for knee replacement surgery. She won’t be able to walk for a couple of weeks at the very least, but she needs the work done.
On a more cheery note, Furtle and I managed to find a long weekend a fortnight back to visit Canterbury again. I do like Canterbury. We stayed in an odd (but reasonable) little hotel (The Sun), which appears to have no staff other than a manager whose answer to everything is ‘the building is 600 years old’. You remember that bit in the Gary Oldman Dracula movie where Harker realises that he is alone in the castle and everything is being done personally by Dracula? It was a bit like that, without the eerie overtones. Though if someone told me that the place is run by an obscure branch of the Addams Family, I shouldn’t be surprised.
We’re worried about Mum again. I think the dementia has progressed to a point where it is borderline as to whether she can continue to live at home. I’ve not seen her personally (I must make time to go up and visit), but her personality sounds to have changed and she is going through the aggressive, vicious stage to the point where she’s been hitting the dog (which has taken it with reasonable grace, thus far) and having tantrums that involve throwing her meals on the floor.
Yesterday I was bombarded with texts and phone calls from the family because they had to take her back to A&E. She has developed the habit of picking her nose (charming) and this brought on an unstoppable nosebleed that had to be cauterised. My niece tells me the bedroom looked like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre had been staged there.
This morning it’s set off again, because she blew her nose, having forgotten that she shouldn’t. Apparently if it keeps up, the hospital has said they’ll keep her in for a while. My sister is thinking about placing her in respite for a week or so, to allow all concerned to have a rest. I fear that we might soon have to bow to the inevitable and have her put in care, though the council and health services will resist if they think there is the vaguest chance of keeping Mum at home. The emphasis these days is on keeping dementia patients at home, but my sister is the sole wage earner and Mum would be on her own too long. We can’t depend upon her to remember to eat or drink; she doesn’t want to much of the time even when there is someone there to coax her and that brings on the bursts of aggressive behaviour.
I guess things will come to a head in a couple of months (if not before) when my sister goes into hospital herself for knee replacement surgery. She won’t be able to walk for a couple of weeks at the very least, but she needs the work done.
On a more cheery note, Furtle and I managed to find a long weekend a fortnight back to visit Canterbury again. I do like Canterbury. We stayed in an odd (but reasonable) little hotel (The Sun), which appears to have no staff other than a manager whose answer to everything is ‘the building is 600 years old’. You remember that bit in the Gary Oldman Dracula movie where Harker realises that he is alone in the castle and everything is being done personally by Dracula? It was a bit like that, without the eerie overtones. Though if someone told me that the place is run by an obscure branch of the Addams Family, I shouldn’t be surprised.