Sunday

We had a difficult night. It wasn’t anything to do with the news about Lesley’s dad yesterday though. The problem was The Dog.

Yesterday had been her first properly hard walk in I don’t know how long. She’s had long walks but they haven’t had the high intensity sessions that only two people gathering sticks and throwing them in the water can offer. She’s 8 next month (we think) and she’s getting a bit of a belly. The daily high intensity workouts she used to get have been side-lined by the flooding, the cold weather and our being out of the house all the time.

By the time Lesley had got home The Dog was already too stiff and sore to get on the sofa without help.

By the time we all went to bed The Dog was too stiff and sore to get comfortable. She fidgeted and kicked to get enough space in bed and then she snored.

I heard a voice in the dark.

“Cup of tea?”

You don’t need to be married as long as we have to be able to translate that into

“Will you get up and put the kettle on? I’d like a cup of tea and you can have one yourself if you like?”

The kettle was topped up and switched on. Half way to boiling it switched off and the kitchen was filled with the acrid smell of burning fuse. Tea would be a little slower than expected in being made.

I didn’t really get back to sleep. I scrolled through Instagram – lots more accounts with dire warnings about the toxicity of covert narcissistic psychopaths were served up by the algorithm – and mused about previous false alarms with Lesley’s dad’s health.

When Lesley woke up my first words were

“I’d put money on him being as right as rain when you get there. He’ll be sitting up in bed with a cup of tea wondering what all the fuss is about. That’s if he’s got any awareness that there’s been any fuss at all that is.”

“Really? Do you think?”

“Yeah. It’d be just like him.”

Sure enough, Lesley’s first update from Dad’s beside started “He’s bright and awake…”

Bloody hell.

“Have they started the end of life meds yet?”

“No. The nurse on the night shift gave him as much morphine as she was allowed to and he slept right through.”

That made sense. I’d been wondering for months whether it was pain that was disturbing his sleep and that wandering around to get to the toilet was just autopilot taking over because going to the toilet was what you did when you woke up during the night.

Lesley said that he seemed quite ‘normal’ and that there was no real sign of his Alzheimer’s. Immediately after saying that she told me that when the carer came round to find out what he wanted for lunch Dad had been given two options. Naturally, he chose one he hadn’t been offered.

“Roast beef or chicken salad?”

“Roast chicken please.”

Lesley asked for the roast beef to be brought for him. She said it looked alright. He didn’t have the energy to cut it up for himself or the strength to chew it.

It was a good example of how weak his decision-making capacity is. When Lesley’s sister was last in the country and they’d been looking for a nursing home for him, Lesley had been bullied into letting him get badgered to make a choice between the two homes they’d seen one day. As he thought through his reasoning he listed all the things he liked about the first one, all the things he disliked about the second one, got them mixed up and then chose the second one. There will be no prizes given for guessing where he ended up. Yep, he ended up in the home that Lesley’s sister preferred.

Speaking of Lesley’s sister, she’d gone remarkably quiet since yesterday’s episode. She’d convinced herself that Dad’s unhappiness and anxiety, his complaints about being held prisoner and the decline in his health at The Home where my Mum had been were caused by The Home not being good enough for him. Now that he was in a home of her choosing, a home that was costing more than half as much again, his condition was worse and the decline was getting faster.

What was that song called? Oh yeah, “Things That Make You Go Hmmmm….”

Author’s Note

My Mum was in a nursing home in the Thames Valley for a year and a half until she passed away in December 2024. My Father-in-law went into the same home the following January. But Lesley’s sister didn’t approve and made the situation so awkward that he had to be moved. The image is not of the home itself. I used AI to generate an image of a typical modern nursing home. Names and locations have been changed or hidden to protect the identities of those involved. Which, for the new home, is probably just as well.