Friday

Big day today. The team at The Home had asked me to be around from 11-ish as they were going to have another go at getting mum out of bed. As suspected, while she was always keen when I suggested it, she had always refused when the carers had asked. Mum was soundo when I got there but woke up enough to have the fruit salad that Lesley makes for her. When the carer arrived to ask the dreaded question Mum grudgingly agreed.

With Mum’s condition being what it is she needs constant eyes on her while in a chair and, not unreasonably I think, they can’t afford to tie up one member of staff on one resident in their own room. There are two lounges and they took Mum to the quieter one where the least able residents are. Mum normally gets her soup in a double-handled beaker with a spout but today her soup came in a regular bowl that was more then twice as big. I got her to eat the lot. She said she didn’t want a main course but I said we would have fish & chips and she ate nearly all of that without much protest. The creme caramel was refused though.

By the time she’d drunk her tea she was knackered and it was unfortunate that she’d really had enough of sitting when the bulk of the carers had gone for their own lunch and it needs two to operate the hoist and get someone into a wheelchair safely. With Mum having had to wait longer than she thought reasonable she was getting agitated and she was still yelling that she wanted to go home as she was wheeled up the corridor. I went back into her room after she was loaded back into bed and changed and she was already nearly asleep.

As I was signing out the manager called from his office to ask if we’d succeeded in getting mum out of bed. I confirmed that we had.

“Wonderful”, he said, “We’ll give her a couple of days rest and try again.”

“I don’t know about Mum needing a couple of days rest. I need a couple of days rest!”.

Whoever it was in the room with him nearly pissed themselves.

That little adventure took 4 hours. I went home for a lie down.

Author’s Note

My Mum is in a nursing home in a small village in the Thames Valley. The photo is not of the home. I used an AI image generator to give the reader some idea of the home she’s in.

All, some or maybe even none (you’ll never know!) of the names have been changed to protect privacy and hide real identities. If you think you recognise someone then let me know and I’ll edit the post or remove it entirely