Tag Archives: caring for elderly parent

Mum gets a kiss from dad.

Most mornings it’s hard to wake mum up. Sometimes when I go into her room, I think she may have died. Then I notice a fluttering of the eyelids, a bit of a gasp and she’s struggling back across the border lands to consciousness. Often, you get the impression she doesn’t like what she sees.

But the other morning it was different, she was alert and happy. She told me, in the night, dad had leant over the bed and given her a kiss. Dad’s been dead for 4 ½ years and in that time mum’s been disappointed that she hasn’t felt his presence around her. Now, finally he had come. He had leaned across and given her a kiss and told her he was worried about something. Worried about what? She did not know.

She often asks me, do you think I’ll see your father again? Well, I tell her, that’s a question no one can answer. But I thought, on odds, there was a 50/50 chance. Either there’s nothing and our consciousness dissolves, or we remain conscious but in a new dimension – in which case, I told her, it was possible they would find each other. She feels sure dad will meet her. ‘If there’s a way, he’ll find it.’

Perhaps her hope to see dad is a way through a dark place. Mum has a lot of pain. She cries a lot and says she’s had enough and wants to die. Still, it must be scary, stepping into that unknown beyond. Perhaps the idea that dad is waiting for her gives her strength to face it.

Perhaps he came to tell her he would be waiting to give her a hand across.

I miss the bus and burst into tears

Last Sunday, my brother came with his family. It was lovely to see them, but not exactly relaxing for me. Monday was a difficult day. I had to repeat over and over again, ‘I am a mermaid, I am a mermaid’ and I managed to keep my cool. Tuesday, the cleaners were due. I got up early, did my chores, put on a load of washing from mum’s ‘accidents’, cleaned up the house so the cleaners could clean (I know, I know), got mum up and got myself ready – as I always go out when the cleaners come.

I had things to do in the nearest proper town and I wanted to get the 11 o’clock bus at the very latest. The bus leaves the terminus at 11 and if I get out of the house on time, I can catch it as it comes past my local bus stop. But I could not leave the house. The agency carer, who was still there, wanted a word. Ok. The cleaner, who had just arrived, wanted a word. Ok. Then mum decided she needed my movements written down on her memory whiteboard.

I finally escaped and raced to the bus stop. The bus was already there! There’s no pavement, so I had to get across the road and approach the driver from his blindside. When I was 10 metres away, he drove off. To my surprise, I burst into tears. But really, tears. Like a kid. Boo hoo, boo hoo.

I suppose it was the last straw. I’d tried so hard to accommodate everyone else. The only thing I’d asked in return was to catch that bus. Now I’d missed it and was possibly faced with a half hour wait. (The buses are supposed to run every 15 minutes, but you often have to wait much longer and two will come along together.) My equilibrium deserted me. ‘Now I will h-have to wait h-half an hour, I kn-know I will.’ Boo hoo, boo hoo. ‘If the c-carer had come earlier. If the c-cleaner hadn’t spoken to me.’ Then! ‘If mum hadn’t made me write down that stuff, stuff she knew perfectly well.’ This set off a great gale of sobbing.

What was weird was, I really couldn’t stop. There was no reason to, as I was quite alone. I stood at the bus stop and sobbed, and there was something quite relaxing in the crying, like a kind of gentle orgasm.

After 15 minutes, a lady appeared so I had to pull myself together. And then, unbelievable joy! The next bus arrived on time. I sat upstairs, put Loreena McKennitt on my headphones and by the time we got into Chichester I was back to my normal philosophical self.

Strangely enough, since then, I’ve felt more positive and optimistic. Perhaps I really did just need to have a good cry!!!

Mum gets institutionalised

Mum and I have both had a respite break. I visited friends, met up with pals from Australia and Canada and old friends from uni. I ate out, saw exhibitions, went to museums, watched movies. I packed in everything I could and had a great time. But I also got a cold and a stomach bug – possibly because I’m a bit run down – and when I got back here I was very tired.

For mum it was quite the opposite! She’d also enjoyed her break. She’d stayed in a residential home where the people are friendly and nice. They like her and she likes them. The change did her the world of good and she came home lively and energised from having some company. But she’d also got institutionalised which meant she expected me to work even harder than normal. So, for a while, we’ve been at sixes and sevens.

For instance: she’s still able to manage her own medication. She has three eggcups, one for the breakfast pills, one for lunch, one for dinner – and she sorts out the right pills into the different cups. All I have to do is help her get the pills out of their packaging, which is difficult for someone with bent-up arthritic fingers.

But at the home, they dished out the medication, and now mum has forgotten how to do her pills. She can’t remember which ones to take, and then she forgets if she’s taken them. In fact, if I don’t watch her with hawk eyes, she’s likely to take a double dose – and with the amount of painkillers she takes, this would not be a good idea.

She’s not only got out of the habit of doing a few small chores she can still do for herself, she’s also lost confidence in her own judgement. Every five minutes she asks me: Shall I change my shoes? Shall I have a drink? Shall I take the pills? What TV channels shall I watch? To which I reply, variously: I don’t know/ It doesn’t matter/ No, mum, don’t do it /Mum, I told you not to do it / Oh, do what you like.

I know mum’s condition will never improve but I don’t want to hasten the proceedings by letting her become lazy minded. So I’ve been trying hard to get her back to doing stuff for herself. And things are improving, slowly.

However, there’s one issue on which I simply can’t compete. At the care home, they have a proper chef. And it seems my meals just don’t compare with his! Mum keeps telling me, ‘this meal is quite nice, dear, but it’s not as good as what they served me at the home……’ All I can do is grit my teeth and nod. ‘Sorry mum, but this is the best I can do.’

I am defeated by dementia!

People tell me they don’t know how I cope. I say, ‘I don’t. Sometimes I throw up my hands and scream, ‘I am defeated by dementia!’

Most of the time you can still talk to mum and hold a conversation. It’s true you can have this same conversation over and over again but still, she is capable of having opinions and grasping logical ideas. She is for example very interested in the upcoming elections.

But then, suddenly you find yourself in the midst of a complete communication breakdown. It’s like there are these little whirlpools in mum’s mind where narrative logic breaks down. The first times it happened I got incredibly frustrated, ‘So thoughtless!’ I ranted to myself. ‘So selfish!’

The second time, it happened I got so angry I thought I was going to give myself a stroke, I swear I felt something pop in my brain. ‘So thoughtless! So selfish! Can’t she see this is stressing me out? Can’t she see that I’m really tired? Doesn’t she care?’ I tried to reason with her and it was like talking to a brick wall.

But I’ve realised, there’s absolutely no point in getting my knickers in a twist. Dementia’s like being on a boat that’s sailing peacefully down the river, going with the flow as it were. Then for no apparent reason, the boat ceases to go forward. Instead it’s caught in a whirlpool, going round and round and round. And it’s like that with mum, she gets these little whirlpools in her brain and she just can’t think beyond them.

For my own sanity and well-being, I have to learn to recognise when we hit one and learn to walk away without losing my cool. Because it’s quite clear, these whirlpools are only going to increase.

Mum sees a Golden Squirrel

Last week Mum saw a golden squirrel in the garden. She said it looked beautiful, gambolling around on the lawn. She says she called me to come and see but I didn’t hear her. A pity, because I would have liked to have seen this fabulous creature. I did wonder if she had been seeing things but there are often squirrels in the garden. I thought perhaps it had been a genetic mutation and reserved my judgement. ‘If it’s living around here,’ I said, ‘I expect we’ll see it again.’

The next day she cried out, ‘There’s a donkey in the garden!’ This time I was there to see that the garden was empty, but I knew there was no donkey. Of course there wasn’t! However mum saw it walk through the fence on one side, across the garden and through the fence on the other side.

Later she said ‘it wasn’t a donkey but a Shetland pony, golden with black, brown and white markings. It was lovely.’ That evening there happened to be a Shetland pony on TV. Mum told me ‘that one is the same as the creature I saw in the garden, except the one I saw had more markings.’ She described the markings to me quite clearly. This is someone who has no short term memory, but she can clearly see this horse in her mind’s eye.

Hallucinations can be a symptom of urine infections and mum is just recovering from one. When the District Nurse came she remarked on how much brighter mum seemed. I agreed but I had to mention that mum had seen two golden creatures in the garden. The nurse ran some more tests but so far everything seems clear. And in a way I’m pleased because seeing these two creatures has made mum feel quite blissful. It’s as if she’s had an epiphany.

When she speaks of the two sightings her face glows. ‘They were lovely. The little horse, it came from there, it went there, it was beautiful.’ I said, ‘Mum you do know it wasn’t real, don’t you?’ ‘What do you mean? It’s real to me; I can see it in my mind.’ ‘Okay, what I mean is – you do know there wasn’t really a pony in the garden?’

Mum assures me that she does know, but it’s quite clear that, on some level, she feels that it was real. In fact these hallucinations/ waking dreams/ visions/ whatever/ seem to have been the best things that have happened to her for a long time. They have made her feel quite blessed.

I embrace my inner bag lady.

The carers get my mother up and dressed. By the time she sits in her chair, her hair’s combed and her cardigan neatly buttoned. But I’m often still in my pyjamas. I don’t sleep in them: I put them on in the morning because they’re comfortable and easy to wash. I don’t want to spoil my nice clothes crawling around wiping up mess, cooking, cleaning etc.

Besides, I can’t be bothered; no one’s going to see me. A couple of times there’s been an unexpected caller and then it’s been embarrassing, but most of the time who’s to know if I’m still wearing my PJs and some old t-shirt at 5pm. I’ve checked out the neighbours. They wear tracksuits, comfy slippers and polyester slacks. None of these are my bag.

A few months before I moved in with mum, I was talking to an old school friend about how to look stylish at 60. We wanted to wear what we’ve always worn and we also wanted to keep our hair long, but this made us look a bit like ageing rock chicks. Recently I rang my friend to see how she was. She said she’d had flu and was feeling like a cross between a rock chick and a bag lady. After some hesitation I admitted that, these days, I am pretty much a full time bag lady.

When I was young, there was a film called ‘Woman in a Dressing Gown’. The phrase held a rather seedy glamour. The implication was that a woman who didn’t get dressed till the afternoon must have rather dubious morals. ‘Woman in her Pyjamas’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. But the idea of just sinking into a sort of lazy slothful abandon is strangely alluring. I mean, I’m hardly a sloth. Full- time caring is not a slothful activity but I do know, not only will I not see anyone at home, it’s very unlikely I’m going to bump into anyone interesting as I trudge to the post office, the chemist, the local supermarket. And then trudge back, lugging a load of shopping, no doubt with a rather harassed expression on my face.

When I lived in the city, I wouldn’t consider leaving the house without lipstick, earrings and perfume. But round here, I think you stand out if you make an attempt at glamour. So, when I go to the local shops, I don’t bother to put on lipstick, I just pull on a pair of jeans and put a coat over an old t-shirt and cardigan. (Of course, during the winter that was okay as a coat can cover a multitude of sins, now it’s spring I’ll have to think again.).

I’ve always said it doesn’t take any more effort to be nicely turned out then to look like a right mess. I still believe that but I’ve ceased to care so much. My inner bag lady – who I realise has always been there lurking in the wings – whispers seductively in my ear. Why bother to make that tiny bit of effort? Who will care? And those blue fluffy slippers are so warm and comfy.

I guess I should just relax and give into it. As long as, if needs be, I can still turn myself into an aging rock chick without too much trouble!2015-03-20 16.30.27