Monday
A rare day at home for me and The Dog today. An awful day for Lesley.
Dad had had a bad night but his carer told us he was up and ready for his day.
“Just one thing though… I can’t find his electric toothbrush”
Eh? It was on its charger in the bathroom yesterday…”
“No sign of it now…
“OK. I’ll be over later. I look for it then”
We’d asked Reggie to get in touch with the manager of the home that Mum had been transferred to 18 months ago. He’d taken redundancy when that home closed last summer and was in the process of starting up his own agency providing care in people’s own homes. He may be the answer to conundrum about whether Dad could stay at home a bit longer.
Did he cover Dad’s village? He wouldn’t normally but he’d make an exception for us. When could he get someone to Dad? Soon. Probably. When the CQC gave him his operating licence. And that was definitely probably soon.
Ah.
It could work out though and it could keep Dad ticking over until after Lesley’s sister’s visit and until a room at a suitable home becomes available as all the good homes have a waiting list.
A plan was emerging.
That plan lasted until The Manager at The Home had gone through her emails on her return from the New Year break. She had a room free. Now.
The choice now was to let that room go and wait for who knew how long while Social Services, the palliative care team and Lesley’s sister got their heads round the concept that Dad had had a sudden decline in his ability to cope at home before getting on the waiting list somewhere. Or Lesley could say Yes to the room.
Personally, it seemed like a no-brainer. Take the room now. To be frank, Lesley’s sister was going to be pissed off for some reason whatever the choice was so why not do what was clearly in Dad’s best interest as soon as possible.
It really did feel like the medical and social service teams who had promised so much help for so long were now dragging their feet when it came to the crunch. Lesley had raised the “This is a crisis now!” flag a few times last week. And help came there none. They were leaving Lesley to sort this out on her own. Or so it seemed.
When Lesley left, The Dog and I went out. Not the happiest of walks. She seemed stubborn even when we were going the way she wanted. She was showing signs of stress because Lesley had been stressed when she left.
When Lesley got to her Dad she found that his bad night was continuing into another really bad day. Her updates on WhatsApp got more and more desperate.
Lesley was getting more and more sure that Dad was beyond needing an hour three times a day. She was thinking what I’d been thinking for a long time. He needs half a minute every 10 or 20 minutes. More while he gets over the current crisis.
But Lesley also thinks that assessing his care needs is something a professional should do. That the ultimate decision on whether he should be in a care or a nursing home should be made by a professional. She’s looking for someone with more skills and experience than we have to help ease the guilt of breaking her promise never to put him in a home. My saying that that promise was made before we knew how bad he would get and that when circumstances change you must be free to change your mind won’t be any help to her.
Then, to cap it all, the manager from Dad’s day centre let Lesley know that she’d been round to tell him that his best friend at the day centre had died over Christmas.
Lesley had been keeping her sister updated throughout the day. Even though she’s in a different time zone she could have responded sooner than she did rather than wait for when Lesley was exhausted and at the end of her tether. An abusive message is still an abusive message even when it’s got a smiley face at the end of it. Lesley couldn’t finish responding to one before another toxic hand-grenade or two got lobbed her way. She switched her phone off.
My Instagram feed’s algorithm seems to have picked up on what had been going on. I got more reels than normal about the dangers of and tactics used by people like that than I ever had before.
Or perhaps they were just more noticeable.
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
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