Monday

“Hello Mum! It’s Nick.”

No response.

“Mum? It’s Nick… Are you alright?”

Her response was unintelligible but it didn’t sound positive.

“It’s freezing cold and pouring with rain out there. Huge great puddles on the roads. You’re better off in here where it’s warm.”

Another unintelligible response.

“Say again Mum?”

“Did. You. Wear. Your. Boots?”

“Yeah. I changed into my normal shoes when I got here.” I lied.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m taking my rule not to contradict a dementia sufferer too far.

Today was Mum’s third stab at Day One Awake. Although it took me a couple of goes to get a response out of her at first she was a little more awake than yesterday and a little less cooperative than both yesterday and the day before. Still not talking, still miserable, still refusing to eat and while she asked me to get her a drink this afternoon her fluid intake was down too over the day as a whole.

She drank the squash I was sent to get but couldn’t/wouldn’t drink more than half of either her tea or her milkshake.

The ruse to bring me a meal with hers so that she wasn’t eating alone didn’t work. She did try some of my sandwich but a slice of cucumber was too chewy for her and she spat the sandwich out into my hand.

She’d been refusing her meds as well. She spat them out this morning, apparently, and simply refused this afternoon. She did smile when I told her it smelled like the cough syrup she gave us when we were little and that she would never have allowed us to not drink it back then but she still refused.

I thought she’d felt hot yesterday and the nurse had thought the same this morning but “there’s no sign of a fever”.

I asked them to check again because she was sweating buckets when I left. You can see the concern on the faces of the staff now. I’m no expert obviously but she looked like she could check out at any minute to me.

For those who’d been enquiring about a video call, I told them that I didn’t think we’d be getting much out of her this week.

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