Wednesday

I hadn’t even signed in at The Home when I heard “Hello Nick! You’re early today”

“Well Gina, you know, you get here when you can”

And then I heard the words “I want to tell you something” and wondered what was coming.

Gina had been to visit Mum yesterday like she does every day and Mum had been very upset. Crying and everything. She was talking about something being “a burden”, something about “hospital” and something about “kids”. Gina didn’t understand fully but told Mum that whatever had happened, she made the best decision she could at the time and that everything was fine now. If she was still upset then she could speak to me when I got there later. I told Gina that there were always kids with Mum and that I thought they were kids she played with when she was very young.

“Ah, so it’s a memory from way back”

“Yeah, a lot of what she talks about is from way, way back. Even my dad rarely gets a mention because the time she talks about is before she met him. Most of her conversation is about her uncles, aunts and her mum and dad. Sometimes she tells me about Nicholas coming to see her.”

We had a long chat about Mum’s hallucinations and how they deal with dementia patients generally. She agreed that Mum would be better off being somewhere with more Real People. We talked more about how we deal with all this personally and I said I do an update after every visit for the family.

“I’m here on behalf of all the family so it’s only right that I keep them all informed about how Mum’s doing. And, almost more importantly, if there’s a decision to be made then everyone should get the chance to have a say. She’s not just MY Mum. So I update a WhatsApp group so we’re all in the loop. It helps me cope with what I’m dealing with too and I’ve got to really enjoy the writing process.”

“Ah, so is this going to be the book you’re writing?”

“What!? How do you…? Yes. I don’t know. It could be. What do you think about it?”

“If it helps somebody else then it would be great!”

“Obviously I’d anonymise it so readers can’t work out who or where and so on. It’s not all about Mum as she’s not the only person I speak to. It used to make Mum laugh when she was in room 35. Someone would walk past and say ‘Hi Nick!’ to me and she’d say ‘Everyone knows you don’t they?'”

“If it gives someone an idea about what goes on in a Nursing Home then perfect. It might vibrate with what they are experiencing and help them feel less alone.”

She means ‘resonate’ but I can’t criticise as her English is far better than my Romanian.

She said that Mum’s doing OK but she just won’t drink enough.

“I’ve stopped taking No for an answer. I put the cup in her hands or to her lips whatever she says and she nearly always has a drink”

“Really? I’ll try that!”

I was eventually rescued by a member of staff coming to ask a question. I’d been there an age and still hadn’t signed in.

Juliette was in a management meeting but I did get the answers I needed and more from Reggie. He said how lucid and “in the present” Mum can be when they ask her questions but they all know Mum can veer off into the surreal if they let her run a conversation. I told Reggie that I’ve let Mum know that she was moving back to her old room and that it looked a little different because it had been redecorated just so that the upheaval was minimised.

There followed a conversation about the things we say to residents to avoid challenging their reality and to keep them from actions that are not in their best interests. The technical term, apparently, is ‘Lies’. His stories are hilarious but when I told him the tales of what I’ve said to Lily in order to stop her trying to escape and get her to go back to her room he pissed himself laughing.

Mum could move as early as this evening but they were having to deal with some high-dependency residents at the moment and resources were tight. There was at least one room with a trolley full of masks and gowns outside so there was some bug or other going round. Shirley had had it and had recovered but Pat (or “Your friend you’re writing the book with” as Reggie calls her) came back from hospital with it and was struggling. Mum will be getting another booster for flu as soon as possible. As per previous conversations with Reggie, the bed had been placed facing into the corridor rather than the garden. At least while the weather was grim and there was little activity outside for her to watch.

What else do I need to say? Oh yes. Mum. Absolutely sound sleep. Totally unresponsive until I shook her shoulder to let her know I’d been. I told her I’d leave her to sleep and would come back later.

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