Wednesday

Started the day with a phone call from my GP for my hypertension review. The good news was that I don’t have to resort to medication straight away. It was agreed that I should try some lifestyle changes first and review things again in six months.

Diet was the first target. My BMI is 28 and I don’t feel comfortable over 26. Time to resurrect the app I used when I was training hard.

The literature I was sent surprised me. It’s American. The National Institutes of Health are very good but I’m intrigued that their literature was chosen in preference to something produced by the NHS.

There was another surprise. I hadn’t appreciated how well-documented the impact of strength training on blood pressure was. I was told to get back to the gym. It seems that resistance training performed with a moderate to vigorous intensity was a good strategy. I was never allowed to exercise that half-heartedly and my trainer would use language that even I wouldn’t repeat here if I did. Go to complete failure or go home.

Another area that needs attention is my sleep. It’s truly awful.

Unsurprisingly, my GP refused to be drawn on my observation that my blood pressure was just about normal on the days when Lesley wasn’t at home.

With Mum reaching her Sleepy and Unresponsive day a day earlier than expected I found myself oddly unprepared for my weekly Mental Health day. Aside from worrying about what to do with Lesley’s dad, walking The Dog and going back to bed for a couple of hours, nothing got done. I felt like I’d done nothing in a wasteful rather than restorative way.

The situation with Lesley’s dad was irritating. While he had grudgingly agreed to accepting the extra help from the carers we’d organised for him when talking to Lesley, we got reports from the staff at his day centre that he had been telling anyone who would listen there that he wasn’t going to let them in the house.

He’ll need a stern talking to because the first visit is scheduled for Monday.

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