I only seem to come here to unload these days.
I spoke to Mum on the phone yesterday. It wasn’t much of a conversation as her memory is awful and her concentration isn’t much better. A combination of the two means that it is very hard to say much about anything and we end up exchanging pleasantries about the weather and I ask what she had for lunch, or dinner but she can’t remember. The voice and personality are still there, but there’s not much backing it up, these days.
That said, in that moment at least, she seemed reasonably happy. There was some laughing, even if it was probably her way of hiding the fact that she didn’t quite know what was going on. She mentioned that it would be nice to have a holiday, which is interesting, because she’s been bundled off today for a fortnight in respite, which again, she seems to have accepted with a certain and surprising amount of cheery equanimity. She has times when she is convinced that we are going to ship her off to a nursing home in perpetuity and we worried that this might be one of them. She will get good care there for two weeks and just as importantly, my sister can have a rest for a couple of weeks. It’s not the holiday Mum meant (probably), but it will do her good.
When she first got ill last year, I had hoped she would recover enough for me to take her down to the coast one last time, like we used to do. But she’s too frail for that and I think she’d get cold except on the most blisteringly hot of days. And a caravan is not really the ideal environment for an elderly lady with incontinence issues and a propensity for picking at scabs on her arms so that they are always bleeding. I’m not sure how the scabs got there in the first place (probably as a result of the hideous bruising the last batch of inept hospital treatment visited upon her), but I don’t see how they can possibly heal short of us making her wear mittens.
Still, she’s off for a stay in a respite home as I say. Hopefully they can help her and maybe even do something about her arms. I’m not sure how much longer we can keep her at home, though. I can see the day when her fears will come true and if she declines as quickly as she has in the past 12 months, it will be sooner, rather than later.
That said, in that moment at least, she seemed reasonably happy. There was some laughing, even if it was probably her way of hiding the fact that she didn’t quite know what was going on. She mentioned that it would be nice to have a holiday, which is interesting, because she’s been bundled off today for a fortnight in respite, which again, she seems to have accepted with a certain and surprising amount of cheery equanimity. She has times when she is convinced that we are going to ship her off to a nursing home in perpetuity and we worried that this might be one of them. She will get good care there for two weeks and just as importantly, my sister can have a rest for a couple of weeks. It’s not the holiday Mum meant (probably), but it will do her good.
When she first got ill last year, I had hoped she would recover enough for me to take her down to the coast one last time, like we used to do. But she’s too frail for that and I think she’d get cold except on the most blisteringly hot of days. And a caravan is not really the ideal environment for an elderly lady with incontinence issues and a propensity for picking at scabs on her arms so that they are always bleeding. I’m not sure how the scabs got there in the first place (probably as a result of the hideous bruising the last batch of inept hospital treatment visited upon her), but I don’t see how they can possibly heal short of us making her wear mittens.
Still, she’s off for a stay in a respite home as I say. Hopefully they can help her and maybe even do something about her arms. I’m not sure how much longer we can keep her at home, though. I can see the day when her fears will come true and if she declines as quickly as she has in the past 12 months, it will be sooner, rather than later.