Tuesday

If she was sticking to her schedule, Mum should have been either already in the next Sleepy phase by the time I got to The Home or well on her way.

She wasn’t. She very much wasn’t.

Mum was very animated and the room was full of Other People. Her hallucinations were very strong. I only hope the Other People could understand what she was saying to them because I could hardly understand a word Mum said.

I think Jean was there again. I still have no idea who that is. Her mum was there too. Mum was very clear about that.

“Would you like a fruit jelly Mum?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you bothered which flavour?”

“No.”

Mum carried on talking. More talking than chewing. I gave her a few minutes once the chewing had completely stopped and asked again. I couldn’t tell if she actually wanted another fruit jelly or had forgotten that she’d already had one but she had a second sweet. Two in one visit. A personal best for her. I avoided eating the rest of the packet. A personal best for me too.

I hadn’t been included in the conversation much right from the start but my involvement got reduced to practically zero after half an hour. I was finding it a bit of a struggle witnessing this level of delirium so decided to leave her to it. Her Other People were clearly more engaging and entertaining than I was.

“NO, NO, NO!!! YOU CAN’T GO YET!!!”

Mum got really upset by my plan to leave and it seemed to have triggered something because a number of her Other People started leaving too.

I reassured her that I was staying and that seemed to settle the Other People with us too. I had to stay until she talked herself to a standstill.

On my way out I met the senior nurse on duty.

“Iris had her COVID jab today!”

That was something I could’ve done with knowing on the way in. It would’ve made Mum’s odd behaviour a little easier to cope with.

“She had her Flu jab last week too.”

Did that explain why she was so poorly last week? It might do. It’s really hard to tell.

“I’ve had them both already.” I told her, “I had mine a couple of weeks ago.”

“Have you? Bless you!”

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