You Will Remember

Aunt forwarded some post she found in Mother’s room. One letter is from the dental practice.

“Dear Mrs X,” it begins, “you will remember…”

Somehow I don’t feel too much faith in these people understanding my Mother’s needs.

Saturday in the East

A helicopter has just flown overhead. No kidding. I am wondering if it is too early to have a glass of rum to warm me from the inside out, but for the minute I am sticking with fizzy water, and there’s a new supply of cocoa in the cupboard, or hold.

By chance today I met a woman who also has a boat and who worked for the Alzheimer’s Society. We put the world to rights standing outside a very pretty chapel I had stopped to look at on my way back from being with Mother. Cameraless, having foolishly decided I didn’t need it, I was wandering about with my iPad. The iPad is quite handy at Mother’s as I can look up odd poems or hymns if I can get a connection. For photography, it doesn’t please me. I prefer a camera.

I know another Alzherimer’s Society person as she keeps hens and I buy eggs from her when I am passing. I am starting to wonder if there is some universal law at work where if I start to talk to the only person in an out of the way spot they are bound to have links to dementia care in some way.

A River of Stones, Day Twenty-Three: There and Back

I drop a kiss on Mother’s head to say goodbye. Today she has not recognised me. I arrived early and walked up the hill from the station. We spent time together. I cleaned, trimmed and filed her nails. She recited The Lord’s My Shepherd with me as I worked. Afterwards, she worked the handcream into her skin, and as the smell of lavender filled the room, lifted her fingers to her nose, inhaling and smiling. After lunch I read to her; the old favourites – Wordsworth’s Daffodils, Masefield’s Sea Fever, Smart’s My Cat Jeoffrey.
I was there for a meeting about her care. At the last minute I called the Alzheimer’s Society, who also help with people like Mother who have vascular dementia. I was lucky; the woman who has been emailing me and speaking to me on the ‘phone since summer was free and happy to attend. I was so glad of her presence and support.

Diminishing Futures

The Forgotten

When I read Pseu’s post this evening,http://pseu1.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/river-of-stones-v/ just after listening to the News Quiz and laughing incontinently, I wanted to bury my head in my hands and cry, or go outside and rage at the moon.

Gradually, as I prepared supper, despair moved to anger.
We should be out on the streets. People living with dementia are still people.

River of Stones Day 5 How is Your Mother?

Three people asked, “How is your mother?” Each time the question was sincere. Three times my eyes filled with tears and I wept for the woman she is now, and the woman she will never be again.

One person asked, “How is your mother?” But she did not really want to know. “About the same,” I answered. My heart cold like a stone.

Christmas Visit

It has been a mild day, but all the same, fifteen minutes sitting on a metal bench at Cambridge ststion was more than enough. I was very happy to board the next train.
I have spent the day East seeing Mother.
She was asleep when I arrived, and when she woke was confused and disorientated. A clergyman came to see her. He seemed to feel I was more in need of blessing than Mother. Maybe he was right.
I took the opportunity to discuss funerals with him. My recent experience when my friend Alison died has made me aware how short a time one has at the crematorium. It turns out there is a chapel we can use very close to the home. This was good news.
This sounds crazy, but I really hope this will be Mother’s last Christmas. I don’t want her to die, yet I do. To see her further diminished would be heart breaking.
I had the end of life meeting with a nurse. The things we do and do not want. I signed. She witnessed. This feels better.
Mother ate a good lunch and nearly licked the pudding dish. She drank quantities of cranberry juice.
When I had finished the talking and signing we want back to poetry.
Brilliant. There is no other word for it. Yeats, Larkin, De La Mare, Masefield, Wordsworth, Roaetti. The old favouritea. And Jenny wotsit’s Warning.
Mother held my hand and tapped the rhythms. We sighed. We laughed. We kissed and rubbed noses.
It was lovely. Precious. Special.
I came home on the train with my heart lighter than it has been for weeks.
Aunt is visiting on Christmas Eve with Morher’s close and loyal friend. Nephew is visiting with a Labrador on Christmas Day.

Neither Here Nor There

Oh the relief.

For the last few days I have had one foot metaphorically in Suffolk. I’ve been ready to pack my bags, scoop up Not Cat and head East. Mother has had a chest infection that was not responding to antibiotics. We had a bit of a wrangle with the home.

Aunt was very concerned when she visited. Mother was off colour, off her food and wheezing. No one seemed to feel a doctor’s visit was necessary. Aunt disagreed. The doctor was called. Aunt called me. I called the home and asked them to ask the doctor to call me when s/he visited.

I stayed home, sorting and shredding old papers in Mother’s files. Finally the ‘phone rang. Not the doctor; the senior nurse at the home who told me the doctor had thought her ‘more than capable of passing on a message’.

Not the point. If we didn’t think the staff capable, Mother wouldn’t be there. I still wanted to speak to the doctor. Fortunately, that was achieved. It was the out of hours service who did not know of the protocols we had agreed with the surgery back in March. She gave me some good advice, said my mother was on antibiotics and expected to respond in forty-eight hours.

I sent an email to the home expressing my full confidence in the staff and explaining I still needed to speak to her doctor myself.

Unravelled

Clearing Mother’s flat a few weeks ago, I found this multi-coloured piece of string. Not Cat enjoyed playing with it, and beyond wondering momentarily where it had come from, I didn’t think much about it.

Clearing the Decks

Maybe, I thought, I could finish everything at Mother’s quite quickly, reclaim Das Boot from the spiders, spend Saturday night afloat and chill a little on Sunday morning. Fat chance.

Nephew had told me Mother’s flat was almost clear. Either he deliberately lied, or he wanted to prevent me having a nervous breakdown in the middle of last week.

I had it, almost, on Friday evening instead. Apart from cherry-picking the contents of kitchen cupboards, meaning it was a bloody good thing I’d brought my coffee filter and fresh supplies, and that my heart hadn’t been set on the Sabatier knife or the pretty white jug, Nephews One and Two had left the kitchen intact.

The sitting room was strewn with boxes, files and God knows what.

At Home

When I left Mother this afternoon, she was smiling and relaxed. I am hoping that we are now on track and the next time I see her she will really be as at home as Not Cat was on her old bed yesterday.

At Home

Dig the 70s quilt cover!