Wednesday

I’d been unsure whether Mum would be awake or not today when I left her yesterday evening. When I got to The Home this evening I found her awake – kind of – and watching the telly.

She was drifting in and out of sleep and when she was awake her speech was barely audible let alone intelligible.

When I could hear what she was saying it was quite surreal.

“There’s a party here tonight.”

“Is there Mum? Are you going?”

“Yeah. And you are too.”

“Oh. OK.”

Mum hasn’t been out of bed voluntarily since she was discharged from hospital last year. But her saying I was going with her did indicate that she knew who I was. I think.

She chatted away and I did my best to keep up with her. Mum’s carer joined us.

“Here are some sandwiches. They’re for you. Iris has already eaten. She did well today. She had soup, a yoghurt and finished her milkshake. And…”, she added pointedly as she left, “your tea has two sugars in!”

I offered Mum a sandwich but she turned it down. She did ask for a cup of tea though and I found a carer to make her one.

Mum carried on talking until there was a voice at the door.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course you can Eleanor! Are you alright?”

This was odd. I’ve often asked Eleanor if she wanted to come in as she wandered up and down the corridor outside Mum’s room and she’d always declined before. She’d always looked tempted but was always afraid to.

Things got odder. While Mum was carrying on a conversation with me and her Other People, Eleanor was answering my question about whether she was alright. She wasn’t. She answered several times with different answers. She was either looking for her husband, her mum and dad, her sons or the soft toys that she called her babies. And if I spoke to Mum she would sob loudly and theatrically.

“Mum’s just got a cup of tea. Would you like one too?”

She didn’t. Then she did. Then she didn’t again. I went and asked for one anyway. That confused all the carers.

“A drink? For Eleanor? Why are you… OH!”

As the conversations went on, Eleanor got more and more anxious and Mum got more and more sleepy. Eleanor’s distress got the better of her and she left the room. Mum stopped talking.

I was left wondering whether Mum had just gone to sleep or whether this was the start of the Sleepy phase that I had expected to begin earlier today. It certainly didn’t look like Mum’s normal hypoactive delirium. There was no fidgeting or fussing with her bedclothes, the hallucinations weren’t as vivid as they usually are.

I had no idea where she was in this cycle or how she would be tomorrow.

Bloody hell.

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