Friday

Mum did nod weakly when I told her I was there today and briefly opened her eyes.

“How are you feeling Mum? Just very sleepy?”

Another barely detectable nod.

I started telling her about my day  but within a few minutes she was snoring.

The visit then became all about finding out when Mum had gone to sleep so I could make a guesstimate of when she’d be waking up.

She’d been hyperactive yesterday. Legs over the bedrail and talking unintelligibly non stop I was told. When the nurse did the meds round at the start of her shift this morning Mum was hypoactive but still alert enough to pinch her lips shut to refuse her meds. She’d been drifting in and out of sleep all day but was properly gone now. I reckoned I’d just witnessed her starting her Deeply Sleepy phase. No need to visit tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Lesley was sitting at home seething. She had gone from mild irritation first thing to fever pitch mid afternoon.

I checked on Dad at 7:30. More to make sure that the webcam was still online than to check if he was OK. His broadband was playing up again and the connection kept failing yesterday. I saw his carer arrive and expected him to go upstairs to get Dad up and give him a bath. But Dad was already up, dressed and having his breakfast. We found out later that he’d declined a bath. In fact, he declined pretty much all help except the meds for his breathlessness and pain management. The cynic in me immediately thought that he’d got up especially early to avoid being ‘messed about’.

His obstruction had been mounting during the week. He’d complained – to Lesley, not to them – that the carers were “too rough”, baths had been declined, too many wipes had been used when cleaning him up and so on. Then we heard he’d been complaining at the day centre that he couldn’t have baths because the carers were late. We know they weren’t. He doesn’t know we know.

Getting dressed on his own is a concern. We know he only changes his pad when he can see it’s dirty. He can’t tell that they’re wet and he’s getting moisture lesions. Frequent baths to keep him clean, frequent changes of pad to keep him dry and application of a barrier cream are what he needs. He can’t or won’t see that this is necessary.

It’s literally driving Lesley mad. The current concern might not sound like much on its own but when it comes on top of half a lifetime of gaslighting, obstruction, bullying and outright lying then it gets too much to bear. Lesley’s been running his house for him for 25 years at least while he basks in the admiration of all the people who tell him they’re impressed that he’s still living independently at home at his age. 

If only they knew.

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