Tuesday

Juliette called me this afternoon to follow up on the email I sent last night. Mum has confirmed that she has pain in her right eye. Juliette was quick to say that she isn’t an eye specialist but she suspected glaucoma.

The options we had were:

1. an NHS referral which will take ages or
2. a private optician which will be quicker

Both of these would involve a trip out of The Home and a quite invasive test. That would be upsetting and required mum’s cooperation which is by no means guaranteed.

There was a third option. Get the GP to take a look and see if she could do something quick to alleviate the discomfort and then monitor Mum.

My favourite plan is the third option and then option 2 if necessary.

I put this to the vote in the WhatsApp  group.

There was an additional wrinkle. Nobody knew about Mum’s dry AMD. I knew she had gone private to avoid the NHS waiting list but it didn’t seem to have made it onto her NHS records.  I asked if either sister had any record of who Mum saw and when?

Brother came back first and concurred with the Option 3 then 2 plan.

Eldest Sister offered to look at when we had the appointments and when Mum was first diagnosed as she had the paperwork. She agreed with the Option 3 then 2 plan.

A couple of hours later I was with Mum and Juliette. We were going with the Option 3+2 plan.

Juliette had been in touch with the GP and she said we could try a different lubricating eye drop. It seemed Mum’s NHS records with regard to her eyes were a lot less incomplete than I’d feared. I reckoned it would be worth forwarding any details we had if they were readily to hand but there was no need to break our necks over it. Mum was comfortable and pretty cheerful so panic over.

Eldest Sister said the eyedrops recommended by the private doctor were never put on her prescription – she used to buy them from Amazon.

I hadn’t looked at what different formulations were available but the cynic in me said that we’d end up with something similar by a different manufacturer. I think what Juliette said was that the likely candidate replacement was available OTC so I was unsure whether it’d end up on her prescription or not. Either way, she was managing it now.

While this discussion was going on I asked Mum how she was. She was a bit indistinct to start with.

“I’m alright I suppose. I feel a bit mad”

I felt the need to check that I’d heard that right.

“Sorry Mum, did you say you feel bad?”

“NO! MAD!”

“Oh. OK.”

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