Tuesday

The first person I saw to speak to when I got to The Home was Al.

“Hello Nick! Your Mum’s been very active today, very active. But she’s eating and drinking like nobody’s business. She even ate all her lunch.”

“She ate her lunch!? She never eats her lunch!”

“Yep. Finished the lot. She even said she enjoyed it”

“Blimey!”

“Oh, and she told me to get Reggie this morning so he could tell me how to do my job!”

I apologised on her behalf.

“Hello Mum! It’s Nick. Are you feeling alright?”

She picked up one of the small pillows that are supposed to stop her falling over in bed.

“Here. Take this. And sort out what’s going on behind me.”

She’d wriggled down the bed and looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“Hang on a minute Mum. Let’s get you all sorted out here.”

I picked her up and lifted her back up the bed, rearranged her pyjama top so it wasn’t rucked up in the middle of her back and just about managed to sort her pillows out faster than she could hand them back to me.

I couldn’t understand much of what she said to me after that until she asked

“Does Nicholas know you’re here?”

“Yes Mum. He knows.”

I sat down and she continued to talk at me. I did my best to keep up. Her mum was back again. She was floating in her usual position by the wardrobe. And her dad had been to see her this morning too.

The Other People with us were quite disconcerting today. They seemed to be appearing from behind me and she would stop mid-sentence when a new one appeared. Mum is normally amused by her Other People. Today was different. I don’t think she was feeling threatened by them but she was a bit disturbed and confused by what they were doing. I couldn’t get her to give me enough of a description to help her make a guess at what they were up to.

Mum only recognised one of the Other People. She couldn’t remember her name but was able to tell me that the lady had had two teeth out.

Then Reggie came in to see us.

“Your Mum’s been very active today”

“Yeah, I know. She’d wriggled down the bed when I got here”

“No, it was worse than that. She was full on ‘Both Legs Over The Bedrail’ when I came round with morning meds.”

“Ah. Was she. It’s a bit early in her cycle for that sort of thing.”

I wasn’t expecting Mum to be that active today. Especially since she’d been as calm and lucid yesterday as I’d seen her in ages. I think it had been the longest real world conversation I’d had with her since she was first ill.

Reggie stayed and talked for ages. Mum carried on talking to her Other People while he told he’d noticed a change. Before moving to this home they would normally be able to wake Mum up for breakfast, a drink or morning meds even when she was at her sleepiest. Not now. When Mum’s in the Sleepy part of her cycle they can’t wake her at all for anything. That means she isn’t eating or drinking anything for two or three days out of every six. She won’t last long at that rate.

Although he didn’t say as much, I think Reggie was giving me a warning.

But then he gave me some better news

“Juliette’s back”

Of all the staff at the previous home, Juliette’s relationship with Mum was one of the strongest. If anyone can turn this around, she can.

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