Saturday

I learnt a new word the other day: Anosognosia.

Wikipedia says it is a “condition in which a person with a disability is cognitively unaware of having it due to an underlying physical condition. Anosognosia results from physiological damage to brain structures…”

Anosognosia isn’t like Denial. That’s a psychological condition. Anosognosia is a physical inability to understand a need for help or treatment caused by a brain injury or a degenerative disease.

The context in which I saw the word Anosognosia used described it as a “lack of awareness” where the sufferer’s brain doesn’t allow them to grasp that they have a problem. The author said that using evidence and logic to a person with dementia was like asking a blind person to look at a picture on a wall. You could try all day and they will not be able to do it.

My newsletter from CareBlazers.com doesn’t tell you what to when you’re in that situation. I suppose you have to pay for a course to find that out. But the newsletter was useful enough. It said to keep reminding yourself that the dementia isn’t being difficult or obstructive on purpose and that the more frustrated you get the more upset they will get.

Mum does this. Every resident at The Home who I’ve heard refuse their meds is doing it. And in the past couple of days, we’ve been given a new insight into the extent to which Lesley’s dad does it.

Having Lesley’s sister visit him has been super useful. A dedicated pair of eyes on Dad for hours at a time, several days in a row has given us a deeper understanding of the state of Dad’s dementia and mesothelioma symptoms.

Dad’s lack of awareness was preventing him from acknowledging the turmoil in his stomach when he needed to go to the bathroom. Everyone else in the room could hear it. He could neither feel it nor hear it. Consequently, he wouldn’t have enough notice that he needed to get himself upstairs and accidents were unavoidable.

We’ve also suspected since the mesothelioma diagnosis that he hasn’t really appreciated what that means. His hairdresser reported yesterday that he’d seemed extremely breathless. His immediate reaction when it was pointed out was to deny that anything was wrong and then to say that he’d been rushing around because he’d only just been dropped off from the day centre. He hadn’t. He’d been at home and had slept for an hour before his hairdresser arrived.

And then there’s the back pain. To him, that’s just backache. To us, it’s a symptom of the progression of his mesothelioma. And he’s been getting it every day.

So, as per normal now, I was late getting to The Home. I met Reggie on my way in.

“Your Mum’s been knocked out all day today” he told me.

“Crap” I thought. I’d been dithering all day about whether I or not I should bother going today; whether or not I should trust my intuition that she would be asleep.

“Anyway, I’m here now. I may as well go upstairs. If she’s asleep then there’s going to be someone else to talk to to make the journey worthwhile”

I popped into Mum’s room just in case

“Hello Mum! It’s Nick”

“Ooh! Hello!”

“Sorry I’m so late. Lesley’s been at her dad’s all day again”

“Oh blimey! Can’t somebody else go?”

Other than having been taken on a really long walk by The Dog, I had no news to tell her so offered to read.

I finished a chapter.

“They’re good little stories these aren’t they Mum?”

No response

“Are you still with me Mum?”

Still no response.

“I’m going home to take the dog out for a wee.”

“NO!”

I could see before the end of the second chapter that she’d gone to sleep and I got no response when I said I was leaving.

I thought I ought to update Eldest Sister so she knew what to expect tomorrow. But I had absolutely no idea.

Bibliography

Tales from the Parish: 31 humorous short stories about community, family and village life, set in the English countryside

Kindle Edition

by Stefania Hartley

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