Monday

We started the day with a message from Lesley’s dad’s carer. It was a photo of a step ladder leaning precariously against the bannisters at the top of the stairs accompanied by the question:

“Did you guys leave this here?”

We did not.

We had questions too.

“Where had that come from?”

“How did a man lacking enough strength to lift a bath towel lift it from wherever it had been?”

“How did a man who needs a walking frame to stop himself falling over get it there?”

“What on earth was he thinking?”

We’ll never have answers to any of them. He might even deny it was him who did it.

Mum had emerged from her latest Sleepy phase. and was awake this afternoon. To start with anyway. She didn’t look like she’d been awake very long.

She’s normally uncommunicative on Day One Awake but she talked non-stop. I couldn’t understand much – the only words I could make out were Tony, Uncle Harry and Dad – but I could tell it was very repetitive.

She’s normally stiff and sore from being immobile on Day One Awake but she was doing the sort of fidgeting that she would do before going into a Sleepy phase.

She’s normally uncooperative on Day One but she had a good breakfast and was very positive about having a milkshake and a cuppa for tea. She did decline lunch completely and anything substantial for tea though.

If you ask her on Day One if she’s feeling alright she will normally tell you that she’s feeling better but today she said she didn’t feel very good. I couldn’t understand enough of what she said to work out what sort of Not Very Good she was feeling. Probably just very hot. She was certainly sweating buckets again.

Her hallucinations had started early too.

She drank her milkshake quickly, stalled half way through her cup of tea and a few minutes later went back to sleep. It felt like she’d been through a full five day Active phase in the space of an hour.

This was going to be another odd cycle.

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