Monday

Day One of Lesley’s dad’s new carer visits. The only hitch seemed to be down to Dad’s habit of hanging a walking stick on the handle of the porch door. The walking stick promptly fell off and blocked the door as the carer let himself in.

But everything after that went way better than we’d expected after he’d been so resistant to the idea of having extra help in his home. Looking at him on the webcam afterwards he seemed less worn out than he does when he gets himself ready for the day centre. He hadn’t needed to sleep and sounded happy when Lesley spoke to him before his lift to the day centre arrived and we were told that he’d spoken very positively about it to his driver.

The main benefit though was the massive sigh of relief here. Lesley looked as if a load had been lifted from her shoulders. That alone made it all worthwhile.

It wasn’t all plain sailing. Lesley’s dad had got confused about how much help these new carers would be providing, what they would be doing and how often they would be attending. Lesley had taken great pains to reassure the lady who has been helping him one day a week that this would be extra help and that she wasn’t being replaced. Lesley’s dad promptly told everyone at the day centre, including the lady we were trying to reassure, the complete opposite.

This brought us face to face with a dilemma that I’ve read many carers of dementia sufferers struggle with. Should we tell the people at the day centre how bad Lesley’s dad’s dementia is so that they know not to take what he says at face value?

Clearly it would make our lives a lot easier if the people he dealt with frequently knew that he only hears half of what he’s told, only understands half of what he hears and only remembers half of what he understands. His dementia also hampers his ability to repeat what he’s remembered.

But dementia sufferers are vulnerable people and he’s already let someone he doesn’t know into his home on one occasion that we know of. Having more people know about his dementia increases the risk to his security at home. Once someone outside the immediate family knows about it then you’ve lost control of that knowledge.

And there’s his privacy to consider. There’s still such a stigma attached to a dementia diagnosis and I’m sure he wouldn’t want his neighbours to know about it.

I don’t think there’s a right answer. I expect his dementia will only become public when he’s no longer able to hide it. Unless someone he knows has been reading this obviously.

In the meantime, we should take the positives from the day: he’s pleased with his new carer, Lesley’s sister is happy that he’s happy and the upset caused to his current helper is probably easily fixed. Probably.

Lesley went to see him this afternoon. Even though he hadn’t needed a nap before going to the day centre he fell asleep while he was there again. He went straight to bed when he got home again too and sent Lesley away. That’s only been standard in the past week or so. At least there’s now a proper carer in place to give him the stronger painkillers in the morning.

As for Mum, I’d assumed she’d been Sleepy & Unresponsive today.

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