Monday

Woke up sore today. The muscles on the front of my neck hurt. I think I’ve given myself a whiplash injury by falling over backwards on Saturday.

The first message of the day was from Lesley’s dad’s carer. He had arrived at 7:30 as usual in the expectation that Dad wouldn’t be awake until 8. Instead, he found Dad up, dressed and hunting for something in the airing cupboard. The crashing sound told him that Dad had knocked something else over. I wasn’t worried. Dad’s already broken everything breakable in there.

Then there was a message from Dad’s day centre. They seemed confused about his anxiety over Lesley’s lost house keys and his instruction for them to look for the keys there.

Next we prepared for a call about Dad from a consultant on the respiratory team at The Hospital. We waited. And waited. The scheduled time came and went.

“I bet they’ve called his number at home again.” I suggested.

We waited.

“I’ll check the letter from the hospital to see if there’s a number for the consultant on it.”

And then…

“Oh. It’s the ninth of next month…”

The Dog’s walk and half a day gone to a clerical error here then. Lesley’s distraction caused by the stress of dealing with her dad, his inability to cope at home, his multitude of appointments, the cock-up with the pharmacy and the constant challenges from her sister is reaching a crisis.

And The Dog is feeling her stress too and was a nightmare this morning. She didn’t get her walk until an hour before sunset and she doesn’t get her breakfast until after the first walk. So The Dog got a special walk. A Ride-In-The-Car-First walk.

On the way home from The Dog’s walk, Lesley said something interesting.

“You seem to be coping with your Mum so much better than I am. Dad’s driving me mad.”

I cope better because it’s easier for me. Mum is warm, comfortable, clean and safe. She has a nurse on site 24/7 and the GP sees her every week. The nurses manage Mum’s prescriptions and administer the meds as prescribed. Mum has company all day every day. She sees staff and residents going past her room all the time and she gets people going in to ask how she is regularly or spend time having a proper conversation every day. She gets plenty to drink. She is offered three good meals a day and there are snacks in the morning and afternoon. She doesn’t necessarily eat them of course but she doesn’t have to remember to eat. The main cause of worry that I don’t have is that she isn’t going to do anything that could harm herself. She just isn’t capable of it. She hasn’t been out of bed voluntarily for 18 months. She’s hardly going to try and do something that’s beyond her capacity and fall over.

You can’t say any of that is true of Lesley’s dad.

But the biggest difference is safety. Yesterday, Dad said he was hoping the weather would clear up so he could go out and sweep the patio. The last time he went in the garden that we know of he fell over three times and ended up losing his glasses and getting a black eye. I don’t know whether he wants to do it because he’s always done it and doesn’t realise or won’t acknowledge that he can’t any more or whether just wants to try and demonstrate that he’s still independent. Either way, he’s a danger to himself and we can’t get him to stop doing things like that. It feels like hardly a day goes by when he doesn’t try something daft and dangerous.

That’s the difference.

Even though I have to experience Eleanor’s distress and Mum not knowing who I am now I often feel that going to The Home is a break from the mayhem here. It’s a haven of peace and calm in comparison.

Mum was sound asleep when I got to The Home and probably had been for a good couple of hours. She had, I was told, eaten well today. I did the standard responsiveness test – saying I was there three times loudly. I got no response from Mum but her carer came in.

“Do you want me to wake her?”

“No, don’t disturb her now. Let her sleep. I’ll go and have a chat with Audrey and Eleanor instead.”

“Oh!”

She said that again when she saw how pleased they were to see me.

Another carer came into the lounge. She gave me a huge wave and a cheery “Hello Nick!”.

“Is that your girlfriend?” Audrey asked.

I only said “No. Not yet.” to make her laugh.

It worked.

It was one of those daft things that my Dad would’ve said for a laugh. When I played it back in my head it came out in his voice. I really enjoy those face-palm, “That’s just what Dad would’ve said!” moments.

The kettle got put on when I got home. While making the tea, Lesley said:

“I’ve now been looking after Dad longer than he looked after me when I was growing up. All this nonsense with him day after day is making me depressed.”

“I know. I can tell.”

Getting as definitive an answer as that as quickly as she got it quite surprised her.

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