Wednesday

I didn’t have a lot of good news to tell the family about my visit to Mum today. The good bit was that she definitely knew who I was and was pleased to see me.

But, she was complaining of feeling hot again and had a raging thirst. She didn’t feel like she had a fever though. Her skin was just clammy.

She spoke in a hoarse whisper and I couldn’t understand enough of what she was saying to know whether she was hallucinating or not. What little I could understand was pretty surreal.

There were the regular topics: Her uncles, boxes that needed to be moved with her when she went home. She also asked me to check whether she was wearing boots or shoes. She wasn’t even wearing socks. She just sounded delirious and she was fighting to stay awake.

When I asked her whether she was comfortable or not she said she was alright (apart from being hot) and she didn’t seem unhappy. She was drinking plenty and she actually didn’t look nearly as bad as she did in October.

Perhaps I was just over-reacting but I take any change as a change for the worse. And Mum was definitely different today. She just wasn’t like any of the states that I’ve seen her in over the past 18 months.

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