NEQ, that isn't a failure that you are responsible for, but it must be painful nevertheless.
Apart from the all the moaning I have been doing about the weather and bus services in Wellington, my visits to my brother went really well. My other brother and nephew had already arranged time together on the actual birthday so we all went and took a cake the day before. Then unexpectedly I decided to go on his actual birthday as well. A group of the Home's residents were sitting eating his birthday cake and a visitor was playing old songs on the piano. I sat and applauded and sung along. I reminded G of the time I almost accidently killed him*, and he laughed uproariously. We also laughed about other memories we shared. Our youngest brother being 10 years younger doesn't share the same memories, and I feel that this is something I can do for G, even though we don't see each other often.
* Think electricity, water and a brother who, sometimes follows his little sister's ideas, even when she doesn't know the risks.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I'm having counselling to help me cope with my cancer. In a session recently I said I found it harder to cope with what was happening to mum, than with my own condition. My counsellor was moved by this, and felt it showed I didn't value myself enough. He may well be right, but to me it seems normal and healthy to be more affected by the suffering of loved ones than with my own. How does it strike the rest of you?
I think it's perfectly understandable - because when you're suffering yourself, you are too busy experiencing the suffering to worry about it much. When you're watching someone you love suffering and you yourself are (relatively) healthy but can't do much to help them, you have far more energy to be upset about the situation...
@Huia, that sounds like a nice visit. My mum's care home had a 'disco' the other week and mum and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Mum's flat has now been cleared and the sale should complete on Friday. That is one less thing to worry about and means I don't have to trek over to her flat every week or so to check on it and do more sorting of stuff. I'm gradually taking things to the Home to make it look more homely and she seems to be settling a little bit more.
Mrs Zappa appears to be back having seizures again, because, guess what, she forgets to take her meds. It's winter here, and apparently she found her self on the floor of the garage (where her washing machine is).
Or she imagined she did and generated the story in a later hallucination. No one can quite work it out. But if it happens too often she'll be at hypothermia risk.
Not taking medicine is a right pain Zappa. Does Mrs Z have anyone coming in who can remind her> My mum got in a right muddle with hers while at home, but fortunately took nothing critical.
We have now sold mum's flat and the money is in her account. So that's care home fees sorted for a bit.
Hope everyone else and their Aging Ps are doing OK.
My mum has been better recently! She used to be a French teacher, and recently received a letter in French from an old friend. Yesterday I took it in to her, thinking we'd get nowhere; she translated it with hardly a pause. It was lovely to see a glimpse of her old self again.
Things have been pretty calm. Mum occasionally mixes up the clock, the phone, and the TV. Sometimes it’s just calling one of them by another’s name, sometimes it’s confusing the function. It’s just... there’s nothing to be done, just figure out what she wants and gently redirect her to the right thing... but it’s like there’s no template for this. Anyway, I keep on coping.
Glad to hear that things have settled a bit AR. I think the fact that there isn't a template is what makes it so demanding - along with the grief of seeing someone you knew and loved as a functioning adult increasingly struggle to manage everyday things.
I hope you are also looking after yourself through it all.
My mum has been better recently! She used to be a French teacher, and recently received a letter in French from an old friend. Yesterday I took it in to her, thinking we'd get nowhere; she translated it with hardly a pause. It was lovely to see a glimpse of her old self again.
This is something I have encountered too. Both my sister and an elderly friend have demonstrated that their French and Latin knowledge are both still alive and well, despite evidence to the contrary.
Goodness - I suppose the part of the brain that controls learning a different language must deteriorate at a different rate from the bit that does recognising your loved ones or remembering what you had for lunch.
What on earth goes on inside our brains is a fascinating question. A couple of years ago a friend of mine, a good linguist, had a stroke. After it he could still speak French but his Spanish had gone.
An elderly woman I visit, who is Swedish, and in her life as a courier has learned and used many European languages, is now at the point where she doesn't realise what langauge she is speaking. The staff at her care home (and I) sometimes have to say to her "I'm sorry but you said the last bit in Swedish (or French or Spanish or whatever). Can you say it in English?" So far when it is pointed out she can do the translation. What will happen if that ability goes, I wonder?
A retired canon friend had a stroke, and when he was recovering, D's assistant went in to visit him. As soon as Canon J. saw him, he started to sing the priest's part of the Rose Responses, and D's assistant replied with the choral part. Canon J. hadn't got his speech back at that stage, but singing bits of the office helped.
The care homes do work it out. We have several non-English speakers, including dementia patients, and somehow they get by even when we're not available.
Not taking medicine is a right pain Zappa. Does Mrs Z have anyone coming in who can remind her> My mum got in a right muddle with hers while at home, but fortunately took nothing critical.
We have now sold mum's flat and the money is in her account. So that's care home fees sorted for a bit.
Hope everyone else and their Aging Ps are doing OK.
Mrs Z, unfortunately, would bite the head off anyone who tried to remind her. She's not a warm cuddly sort!
Zappa, I found it hard to watch my father make some really bad decisions. It really only ended when he went into care, and that was due to an absolute emergency where he had no option. We were lucky too that the head nurse, Gail was totally brilliant and he really respected her - which didn't stop him from arguing with her, but he usually agreed in the end.
I hope if it comes to that for Mrs Z there is an outsider like Gail who can get through to her.
What on earth goes on inside our brains is a fascinating question. A couple of years ago a friend of mine, a good linguist, had a stroke. After it he could still speak French but his Spanish had gone.
Yes - a dear friend of ours had quite a bad stroke, and it affected his speech catastrophically. As he was a very conversational chap, this was a cruel blow. It was always a surprise that if he struggled for a word in English, you could remind him to try it in French, and very often he could come up with something that helped him get his idea across.
IANAD, still less a mental health professional, but one thing I think is vital for us all to remember. There are as many kinds of dementia sufferers as there are kinds of people, and what holds for one does not hold for everyone. People say confidently that sufferers lose their memory backwards so they can remember what they sold their IBM shares for in 1958, but not what the tour guide told them ten minutes ago, and that is true for some; but in other cases, memory just seems to fade completely so that they exist almost entirely in the present moment.
However, one thing seems to remain - none of them believe their children, preferring to take advice from any random person who happens to take their fancy!
The care homes do work it out. We have several non-English speakers, including dementia patients, and somehow they get by even when we're not available.
Yes, the care home will work it out. In the severe cases of dementia, the patient loses the ability to make coherent sentences, the homes still manage to work it out.
Mum is entering that state and she is slow to lose her speech for a dementia patient.
However, one thing seems to remain - none of them believe their children, preferring to take advice from any random person who happens to take their fancy!
Mrs. S, ruminating
Amen! My sister and I have been thunderstruck when the parents listened to and followed the advice of strangers over our attempts to help them! I'm not talking about doctors and persons with particular knowledge, but about people who stand to gain financially by conning them into doing certain things. (cough-unscrupulous realtors-cough)
Our friend with dementia who has no family other than a group of six longstanding friends is the same. Will quite happily take advice from cab drivers as he now has to go by cab. We took his car from him. The cashier in Colesworths is another source of advice for him. She did at least show him how to use card when he had forgotten.
Oddly enough, my sister while dying was like this. She would listen to the barely known people from hospice while she would put up major opposition to her own kin. Weird.
Bought 91 yr old father an iPad. His sight continies to deteriorate to virtually nil. Nothing to do except slow what's left departing.
He had CNIB tell him the iPad was a good idea. Now he is listening to Siri, the voice of the gadget. So far okay. Worried a little if he researches medical advice.
He asks her encyclopedia type questions to see if she knows what she's talking about.
Poor Dad got the bill from the scumbuckets and thank goodness knows enough to ask me about it. Most of the time, he gets a bill and sends payment by the next day.
My mother has been having a health symptom on and off for several months, which (Dr. Google tells me) could be a sign of something fairly small, or could be a sign of something terribly serious.
I can’t convince her that it might be serious and to get it looked at.
I don’t know why I even bother to care about her health when she can’t be bothered. *pounds head against the wall and hides under a pillow*.
(P.S. I just found the key. Or at least, a key. I’ve persuaded her to call Saint Doctor In State Six States Away Where Mum Used To Live And Who Is Only At Work One Day A Week In Semi-Retirement Who Mum Persists In Considering Her Primary Physician and ask him about it. Maybe he’ll prescribe that she see someone local about it. More likely, he’ll prescribe some medicine just by phone diagnosis without seeing her, and that will be that. But see above about me being unable to persuade Mum to do anything sensibly.)
@Autenrieth Road - hope your mother's favoured physician comes through with a sensible suggestion for a next stage in getting whatever it is looked up. My mother was always the reverse, she liked bothering her GP with various things, most of which were pretty minor.
A worry about your dad and the scammers @jedijudy . Hope he remembers to consult you before doing things next time.
I went to see mum today. Last week I visited three times and she was joining in and if not exactly ecstatic to be in the Home was at least fairly settled. Today she was in full I want to leave I hate it here mode. I can see she hates not being to go out when she likes, but she has no clue where she is, or where any of the buses nearby actually go. She'd be horribly lost I about five minutes.
@Lily Pad unfortunately my mother doesn’t want me involved in talking to her doctors, and if I go behind her back on this I don’t want to put the burden of secrecy on her doctors. So as long as she’s mostly able to manage herself (apart from the scraps of memory loss), I’m loath to step in that directly.
@Sarasa my mother usually is bothering Doctor Saintly all the time, so I don’t know why she’s been so reluctant with this.
I don’t even know why I feel any concern or responsibility for her health, as long as she’s not unconscious or raving delirious, in which case I get her to the ER (which happened a few years ago when she had pneumonia).
What a mess. It would all be so much easier if her normal lifelong self (i.e. completely apart from any effects of dementia) wasn’t so unpleasant and rigid.
(Latest thing this afternoon: she doesn’t remember how the house is laid out, plus she has just refused to wipe herself in the bathroom and either wants me to do it, or wants to come in another room and have me give her some toilet paper. This just came out of f-ing left field. I don’t even know what to think. But really, except for these moments of wild insanity, she’s mostly normal. Sh-t sh-t sh-t sh-t. No pun intended.
I recognise that I'm over anxious and protective of my mum. Having said that, I go away tomorrow and won't be back until Monday; the longest time I've left her for since she became so dependent. So I'm feeling worried about her, and guilty for going.
It may be good for both of you. Could you ask a care worker to maybe keep a brief daily log for you, letting you know what her mood/behavior/experience has been on average each day? You might be surprised at how much more positive it is than what you yourself observe. Observers do influence behavior!
Hi @Robert Armin I hope you enjoy your time away and that you don't worry about your mother too much. I tend to visit my mother two to three times a week, but I've stopped saying I'm coming on various days as that seems to stop her doing other things as she spends all the time expecting me until I turn up. She was having a row with the careers the other week as she was convinced they were stopping me seeing her. She now seems pleased to see me when I suddenly appear. It's odd that she did remember the days I said as she asked me the other day how my mother was.
Blind 91 year old father now has to have cancer surgery. Completely different health problem. Trying to get my siblings to travel here, from 3 and 4000 km away by paying for their travel and rental car. Dunno how reasonable, ethical, moral using guilt on them is so we can survive the demands of his care. Also don't know how I got all the caregiver motivation and they got none. --and now enough of my whining.
All my sympathy. It isn't worth it, really, in my experience. Get as much home care support as they can give and soldier on. Wish I lived closer to give you some respite.
I think I agree with @Lily Pad@NOprophet_NØprofit . There seems to be a limit into how much you can persuade people to do things for Aging Ps who really don't want to. Sorry to ehar you dad has another health problem on top of the ones he already had.
Sister-in-law and nephew went to see mum yesterday. Today she thinks SiL is my dad's new wife and her son is my dad's, dad died twenty year ago btw. Or on the other hand nephew might be mine. Mum was also STILL talking about the tour rep she fell in love with six years ago. She now wishes she'd stayed in Italy and had his babies.
After I dropped her back I went to see the deputy manager. Plans are in place to get her checked over by the memory clinic and hopefully get something in place to lift her mood. When she wasn't getting family relationships confused she was talking about how much she hated being in the home, and how of course she could look after herself.
I took The Intrepid Grandson down to see The Dowager on Thursday - I thought we might manage to cement the news of his new baby brother in what she loosely calls a mind. No chance!
She was in the dining room with a few others, while the full-time activities co-ordinator was trying to get them to make a cake. She wasn't at all interested, though she appeared glad to see us. However TIG was desperately shy with all these scary old people around, and eventually it took three of us to manoeuvre her down to her room, where we could talk. I had sent her a postcard announcing the birth, which was propped up by her bed, but she had no memory of it.
Well, after about 15 minutes she fell asleep (oh goody! we drove an hour and a half for this?) but she woke up in a better mood and watched us make a giant floor puzzle of a map of the world. Then I read the pair of them the books I'd had made, about TIG's second Christmas and her 93rd birthday, and that was us finished. But TIG was very sweet and gave her a lovely hug and a kiss, and I heard her telling the co-ordinator that it had been 'miraculous' to see us, so I suppose it was worthwhile.
@Sarasa - I'm sure they can find something that will help. At Mum's home, a lady I'd met on various occasions and who'd always seemed reasonably sensible, was raising Cain about how she needed to see her daughter to get her to take her home, and she wasn't going to eat anything until she did. We're not alone in this ...
@NOprophet_NØprofit I think you might be better using that money to pay for carers, honestly. So sorry thatyouhave this to deal with as well.
My mother has been unwell for over a week now, with a chest infection and cough. My brother, who lives near her, phones every day to offer to go to the supermarket for her. My nephew has also offered. I have offered, repeatedly, to sort out an online delivery.
I've had the following conversation:
Me: Mum! Why did you get Dad to drive you to Tesco today?
Mum: I thought some fresh air would help me feel better.
Me: There is fresh air in the garden! You don't need to go to Tesco for fresh air!
Mum: I'm not sure I could walk unsupported round the garden. At Tesco I can hang onto a trolley.
Where is the head-banging emoticon when you need it?
Mum just doesn't want online deliveries, although she knows I get a monthly delivery of all the boring, heavy stuff - washing powder, toilet tolls, tea bags etc. I can understand that she wants to choose fresh fruit and veg herself, but why she wants to be able to choose the standard non-perishables is beyond me. She's even telling me that she struggles to carry shopping in and out of the car, but is implacable - no deliveries.
It seems to be because I would pay online and then she would post me a cheque, but there would be a gap between it leaving my account and the cheque going in. She seems to think that our finances are so precarious that a week out of pocket might tip us over into penury.
Is there anyway you could sign your mum up using her own bank details, or does she not trust on-line grocery companies not to hike off with her money?
I got back late last night from a few days helping look after my mother-in-law while my brother-in-law, her carer, takes a well deserved holiday. MiL is to my mind much easier to look after than my mum, but that may well be because the emotional ties are different. I met her when I was thirty and in lots of ways she became the mother I probably should have had, as well as one of my best friends. She is very deaf and very confused, and probably shouldn't be living alone anymore, even with her son calling in twice a day. Getting her to move I think will take a crisis, and I don't want to wish that on her. We had a good time, re-watchingFleabag which she thought was different from the last time she saw it, and I got her to critique one of my short stories. She used to lecture in English, and though she might be so confused she can't really remember how many children she'd got, she can still morph into lecturer mode, and her advice was very useful.
Both parents are extremely suspicious of anything that involves "money" and "online" There is no way that Mum would do it, and even if I could talk her round, Dad would be implacable.
Mum continues unwell, and also continues to refuse help. She has a day in which she wakes up feeling better and springs into action, only to relapse. She's currently on her third "recovering" phase. I feel both worried and helpless.
I took The Intrepid Grandson down to see The Dowager on Thursday - I thought we might manage to cement the news of his new baby brother in what she loosely calls a mind. No chance!
She was in the dining room with a few others, while the full-time activities co-ordinator was trying to get them to make a cake. She wasn't at all interested, though she appeared glad to see us. However TIG was desperately shy with all these scary old people around, and eventually it took three of us to manoeuvre her down to her room, where we could talk. I had sent her a postcard announcing the birth, which was propped up by her bed, but she had no memory of it.
Well, after about 15 minutes she fell asleep (oh goody! we drove an hour and a half for this?) but she woke up in a better mood and watched us make a giant floor puzzle of a map of the world. Then I read the pair of them the books I'd had made, about TIG's second Christmas and her 93rd birthday, and that was us finished. But TIG was very sweet and gave her a lovely hug and a kiss, and I heard her telling the co-ordinator that it had been 'miraculous' to see us, so I suppose it was worthwhile.
@Sarasa - I'm sure they can find something that will help. At Mum's home, a lady I'd met on various occasions and who'd always seemed reasonably sensible, was raising Cain about how she needed to see her daughter to get her to take her home, and she wasn't going to eat anything until she did. We're not alone in this ...
@NOprophet_NØprofit I think you might be better using that money to pay for carers, honestly. So sorry thatyouhave this to deal with as well.
Mrs. S, empathising
The problem with paying for outside help is that he is adamant he will not accept it. We did try when we went on holidays once and he refused to let them in. Which was lovely. I expect others here have the experience of crying while swearing while devils conjure their thoughts.
My mother is still ill. I made two quick sponge puddings for her. Yesterday when I visited she returned the pyrex dishes the puddings had been in. Both with puddings which she had made in them.
Both were more time-consuming puddings than the ones I had made for her.
Instead of being helpful, and letting her rest a bit more, it seems I created a situation in which Mum got less rest because she spent more time on the replacement puddings than I had on the originals.
She is struggling to breathe; she is wheezing and doesn't look well. I could weep.
Comments
Apart from the all the moaning I have been doing about the weather and bus services in Wellington, my visits to my brother went really well. My other brother and nephew had already arranged time together on the actual birthday so we all went and took a cake the day before. Then unexpectedly I decided to go on his actual birthday as well. A group of the Home's residents were sitting eating his birthday cake and a visitor was playing old songs on the piano. I sat and applauded and sung along. I reminded G of the time I almost accidently killed him*, and he laughed uproariously. We also laughed about other memories we shared. Our youngest brother being 10 years younger doesn't share the same memories, and I feel that this is something I can do for G, even though we don't see each other often.
* Think electricity, water and a brother who, sometimes follows his little sister's ideas, even when she doesn't know the risks.
I think it's perfectly understandable - because when you're suffering yourself, you are too busy experiencing the suffering to worry about it much. When you're watching someone you love suffering and you yourself are (relatively) healthy but can't do much to help them, you have far more energy to be upset about the situation...
Mum's flat has now been cleared and the sale should complete on Friday. That is one less thing to worry about and means I don't have to trek over to her flat every week or so to check on it and do more sorting of stuff. I'm gradually taking things to the Home to make it look more homely and she seems to be settling a little bit more.
Or she imagined she did and generated the story in a later hallucination. No one can quite work it out. But if it happens too often she'll be at hypothermia risk.
We have now sold mum's flat and the money is in her account. So that's care home fees sorted for a bit.
Hope everyone else and their Aging Ps are doing OK.
Glad to hear about the sale of your mum's place, Sarasa - that's a load off your mind.
I hope you are also looking after yourself through it all.
This is something I have encountered too. Both my sister and an elderly friend have demonstrated that their French and Latin knowledge are both still alive and well, despite evidence to the contrary.
Mrs Z, unfortunately, would bite the head off anyone who tried to remind her. She's not a warm cuddly sort!
I hope if it comes to that for Mrs Z there is an outsider like Gail who can get through to her.
Yes - a dear friend of ours had quite a bad stroke, and it affected his speech catastrophically. As he was a very conversational chap, this was a cruel blow. It was always a surprise that if he struggled for a word in English, you could remind him to try it in French, and very often he could come up with something that helped him get his idea across.
IANAD, still less a mental health professional, but one thing I think is vital for us all to remember. There are as many kinds of dementia sufferers as there are kinds of people, and what holds for one does not hold for everyone. People say confidently that sufferers lose their memory backwards so they can remember what they sold their IBM shares for in 1958, but not what the tour guide told them ten minutes ago, and that is true for some; but in other cases, memory just seems to fade completely so that they exist almost entirely in the present moment.
However, one thing seems to remain - none of them believe their children, preferring to take advice from any random person who happens to take their fancy!
Mrs. S, ruminating
Yes, the care home will work it out. In the severe cases of dementia, the patient loses the ability to make coherent sentences, the homes still manage to work it out.
Mum is entering that state and she is slow to lose her speech for a dementia patient.
Amen! My sister and I have been thunderstruck when the parents listened to and followed the advice of strangers over our attempts to help them! I'm not talking about doctors and persons with particular knowledge, but about people who stand to gain financially by conning them into doing certain things. (cough-unscrupulous realtors-cough)
He had CNIB tell him the iPad was a good idea. Now he is listening to Siri, the voice of the gadget. So far okay. Worried a little if he researches medical advice.
He asks her encyclopedia type questions to see if she knows what she's talking about.
Poor Dad got the bill from the scumbuckets and thank goodness knows enough to ask me about it. Most of the time, he gets a bill and sends payment by the next day.
I hope he hasn't sent payments to other scammers.
My mother has been having a health symptom on and off for several months, which (Dr. Google tells me) could be a sign of something fairly small, or could be a sign of something terribly serious.
I can’t convince her that it might be serious and to get it looked at.
I don’t know why I even bother to care about her health when she can’t be bothered. *pounds head against the wall and hides under a pillow*.
(P.S. I just found the key. Or at least, a key. I’ve persuaded her to call Saint Doctor In State Six States Away Where Mum Used To Live And Who Is Only At Work One Day A Week In Semi-Retirement Who Mum Persists In Considering Her Primary Physician and ask him about it. Maybe he’ll prescribe that she see someone local about it. More likely, he’ll prescribe some medicine just by phone diagnosis without seeing her, and that will be that. But see above about me being unable to persuade Mum to do anything sensibly.)
A worry about your dad and the scammers @jedijudy . Hope he remembers to consult you before doing things next time.
I went to see mum today. Last week I visited three times and she was joining in and if not exactly ecstatic to be in the Home was at least fairly settled. Today she was in full I want to leave I hate it here mode. I can see she hates not being to go out when she likes, but she has no clue where she is, or where any of the buses nearby actually go. She'd be horribly lost I about five minutes.
@Sarasa my mother usually is bothering Doctor Saintly all the time, so I don’t know why she’s been so reluctant with this.
I don’t even know why I feel any concern or responsibility for her health, as long as she’s not unconscious or raving delirious, in which case I get her to the ER (which happened a few years ago when she had pneumonia).
What a mess. It would all be so much easier if her normal lifelong self (i.e. completely apart from any effects of dementia) wasn’t so unpleasant and rigid.
(Latest thing this afternoon: she doesn’t remember how the house is laid out, plus she has just refused to wipe herself in the bathroom and either wants me to do it, or wants to come in another room and have me give her some toilet paper. This just came out of f-ing left field. I don’t even know what to think. But really, except for these moments of wild insanity, she’s mostly normal. Sh-t sh-t sh-t sh-t. No pun intended.
Sister-in-law and nephew went to see mum yesterday. Today she thinks SiL is my dad's new wife and her son is my dad's, dad died twenty year ago btw. Or on the other hand nephew might be mine. Mum was also STILL talking about the tour rep she fell in love with six years ago. She now wishes she'd stayed in Italy and had his babies.
After I dropped her back I went to see the deputy manager. Plans are in place to get her checked over by the memory clinic and hopefully get something in place to lift her mood. When she wasn't getting family relationships confused she was talking about how much she hated being in the home, and how of course she could look after herself.
She was in the dining room with a few others, while the full-time activities co-ordinator was trying to get them to make a cake. She wasn't at all interested, though she appeared glad to see us. However TIG was desperately shy with all these scary old people around, and eventually it took three of us to manoeuvre her down to her room, where we could talk. I had sent her a postcard announcing the birth, which was propped up by her bed, but she had no memory of it.
Well, after about 15 minutes she fell asleep (oh goody! we drove an hour and a half for this?) but she woke up in a better mood and watched us make a giant floor puzzle of a map of the world. Then I read the pair of them the books I'd had made, about TIG's second Christmas and her 93rd birthday, and that was us finished. But TIG was very sweet and gave her a lovely hug and a kiss, and I heard her telling the co-ordinator that it had been 'miraculous' to see us, so I suppose it was worthwhile.
@Sarasa - I'm sure they can find something that will help. At Mum's home, a lady I'd met on various occasions and who'd always seemed reasonably sensible, was raising Cain about how she needed to see her daughter to get her to take her home, and she wasn't going to eat anything until she did. We're not alone in this ...
@NOprophet_NØprofit I think you might be better using that money to pay for carers, honestly. So sorry thatyouhave this to deal with as well.
Mrs. S, empathising
I've had the following conversation:
Me: Mum! Why did you get Dad to drive you to Tesco today?
Mum: I thought some fresh air would help me feel better.
Me: There is fresh air in the garden! You don't need to go to Tesco for fresh air!
Mum: I'm not sure I could walk unsupported round the garden. At Tesco I can hang onto a trolley.
Where is the head-banging emoticon when you need it?
It seems to be because I would pay online and then she would post me a cheque, but there would be a gap between it leaving my account and the cheque going in. She seems to think that our finances are so precarious that a week out of pocket might tip us over into penury.
(Bangs head off desk)
I got back late last night from a few days helping look after my mother-in-law while my brother-in-law, her carer, takes a well deserved holiday. MiL is to my mind much easier to look after than my mum, but that may well be because the emotional ties are different. I met her when I was thirty and in lots of ways she became the mother I probably should have had, as well as one of my best friends. She is very deaf and very confused, and probably shouldn't be living alone anymore, even with her son calling in twice a day. Getting her to move I think will take a crisis, and I don't want to wish that on her. We had a good time, re-watchingFleabag which she thought was different from the last time she saw it, and I got her to critique one of my short stories. She used to lecture in English, and though she might be so confused she can't really remember how many children she'd got, she can still morph into lecturer mode, and her advice was very useful.
Mum continues unwell, and also continues to refuse help. She has a day in which she wakes up feeling better and springs into action, only to relapse. She's currently on her third "recovering" phase. I feel both worried and helpless.
The problem with paying for outside help is that he is adamant he will not accept it. We did try when we went on holidays once and he refused to let them in. Which was lovely. I expect others here have the experience of crying while swearing while devils conjure their thoughts.
Both were more time-consuming puddings than the ones I had made for her.
Instead of being helpful, and letting her rest a bit more, it seems I created a situation in which Mum got less rest because she spent more time on the replacement puddings than I had on the originals.
She is struggling to breathe; she is wheezing and doesn't look well. I could weep.
But you are helping her, just by being there.