Thursday

The night had been clear, cold and frosty. I think Lesley had been awake for most of it.

When she was aware that I was awake she said

“Get your kilt on and go and see if my keys are in the car…”

“Eh? Alright…”

A few minutes later…

“If you’re able to do a Happy Dance in bed without disturbing The Dog then you can do your Happy Dance.”

With the missing keys not missing any more I asked if I could take a quick peek at the letter from Dad’s psychiatrist.

It made me quite angry.

It wasn’t that he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. That wasn’t at all surprising. Look at what the NHS website says and he’s got pretty much every symptom. He checks all the boxes.

No, the annoying thing was the phrase that he’d been “given a diagnosis in August”. No he hadn’t, They may have “made” the diagnosis in August when he went to the memory clinic but this letter was when it was “given”. If we’d known four months ago that that was the case we’d have been better prepared and less confused at how his dementia seemed to be galloping away and gaining pace.

The plan for the day got given more urgency by a call from the carer attending Dad. After his breakfast, Dad had experienced another bout of pain before he dashed, as best he could, to the bathroom.

“I think the stuff the doctor gave him for his constipation is beginning to work”

Lesley said she’d be there in an hour.

The Dog’s walk should’ve been a long and muddy one but she declined that. Not sure why. She seemed anxious not to be away from home too long. Like she wanted to get back home in case Lesley came back. Once again she’d seen one of her Humans get a phone call, get stressed and rush out of the door.

Getting back earlier than expected gave me the chance to catch up on some admin. I had post that had been sitting on my desk unopened for six weeks. The fruits of my day of labour were that I could actually see a bit of my desk.

My phone pinged.

It was Lesley saying that Dad was exhausted and she was coming home.

“The doctor did warn him that when it happened it would be uncomfortable and messy.”

“Uncomfortable” would be a good word to describe the catch-up call that Lesley had with her sister too. She was unwilling or unable to grasp how bad Dad was now and how different he was compared to when she last saw him.

“It seems to me,” I said, “that there are only two people on the planet that think he shouldn’t be in a care home and one of them has Alzheimer’s.”

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