5 November 2012
Apparently, my mother has a “Gentleman Friend”; someone she’s met at the Hospice Care Centre. He is tall, upright and well spoken. When they
played some old records at the Care Centre, he asked if mum would like dance
with him. Despite her “gruesome” pain, they fox-trotted away the afternoon together.
Mum has always loved dancing but dad was never a party animal. I assured her that I
wouldn’t mind having a step-dad. However, given the fact that they both go to
the Hospice, I can’t think this will be a long term relationship.
6 November 2012
Had a phone call from Social Services. They have just been
to deliver a seat that goes across the bath for her sit on when she has a
shower. She refused to accept it. She said she didn’t need it. And then mother
accused the social worker of accusing her of smelling and of being in need of a
bath. The social worker said I should contact mum’s doctor and arrange for a
Community Psychiatric Nurse to visit mum regarding her dementia. “Dementia?
What dementia? She’s always been like this”, I said.
If fact we'd had a similar experience with mum, when dad was
in hospital and she stayed with us for 2 months. (I'm still on medication for
blood pressure). My wife asked mother if she was OK using our shower, would she
like us to fix a handrail? Mum took this to mean that my wife was accusing her
of smelling and being in need of a wash! Mother stayed in her room, refusing to
come out. The next day she got up at the crack of dawn and ran away. We heard
nothing from her until the evening when she phoned from the hospital, where
she'd been visiting dad, and asked for a lift home as if nothing had happened!
Can people be born with dementia?
8 November 2012
The doctor has been into see mum and has arranged for her to
have an x-ray on her hip, leg, and foot (where she dropped the milk bottle).
Mum told me that the doctor wants her to go into a “Sanatorium”. I said, “I
think you mean an insane-atorium”. I told her that not taking her pain-killers
was a sign of dementia and that I would speak to the doctor myself.
I phoned the doctor, a very nice lady indeed. I was amazed
at all the professionals who go to visit mum, because whenever I visit her, she
complains that no one ever goes. The doctor told me that this week alone she’s
had visits from the Occupational Therapist, Community Matron, Hospice Care
Nurse, Cancer Nurse and the Doctor herself. I suggested that they add Community
Psychiatric Nurse to the list. The doctor was taken aback at mother saying that
she was going into a “Sanatorium”. The doctor had said no such thing to mother.
15 November 2012
Mum not well enough to go out for coffee today. She is in
“gruesome” pain. She says she sleeps in the armchair because it is too painful
to lie down in bed. Has she taken the pain killers? Of course not. She has
decided that she isn’t going to the Hospice Day Centre any more: it is full of
old people who do nothing but sleep all day. I told her that it was about time
she did the same and give us all some peace and quiet
16 November 2012
8:45am. Message on my mobile answer phone from the from the
Acute Medical Unit at Exeter hospital. Mum was admitted at 3am this morning
with breathing problems. I spent ½ an hour phoning the hospital. It was
constantly engaged. Eventually I got through to the new computerised switched
board.
Me: Acute Medical
Unit.
Computer: Do you
want AMU east or west?
Me: West.
Computer: I’ll
put you through to Clyst ward unless you say cancel.
Me: Cancel.
Computer: Which
ward would you like?
Me: Acute Medical
Unit.
Computer: Do you
want AMU east or west?
Me: West.
Computer: I’ll
put you through to Clyst ward unless you say cancel.
Me: Cancel.
Computer: Which
ward would you like?
Me: I want to
speak to a human being.
Computer: I’m
sorry I didn’t understand you. Which ward would you like?
Me: Acute Medical
Unit!
Computer: Do you
want AMU east or west?
Me: West. Put me
through to West. Do you understand you stupid computer? West. West. West.
Computer: I’ll
put you through to Clyst ward unless you say cancel.
Me: Cancel.
Computer: Which
ward would you like?
Me: (Thinks. I’ve
being saying West instead of AMU West) AMU West.
Computer: One
moment please and I’ll connect you.
AMU West: Good
morning AMU West, how can I help you?
Me: I am
enquiring about a Mrs Margaret Napper.
AMU West: I’m
sorry you have the men's ward. You need to phone EMU East.
Me: No. Please
don’t make me speak to that computer again. Can’t you transfer me?
Which she does.
They told me that mum was now ready to go home. Could I go
to her home and pick up some clothes and collect her ASAP and take her to the
Hospice Day centre. Where she is a “helper”.
Me: A what?
Nurse: Your
mother has told us that she is a helper at the Day Centre and needs to be there
this morning.
Me: A helper!!!!
She’s a patient there! She’s 90 years old, has a tracheotomy, is eaten up with
arthritis and has cancer. She’s a patient!
Nurse: Well, she
told us she as a helper.
Me: You can also
add dementia to the list of all to things that are wrong with her. Yesterday
she told me she was never going there again.
Went to mum’s and picked up all the clothes that were laid
out on the chair. Remembering how last time mum had complained that I’d brought
the wrong colour shoes, I made sure everything was colour coordinated. I noticed
that the bed had been slept in (despite mum’s assertions that her pain is too
“gruesome” and she has to sit up all night in her chair.)
Arrived at hospital. The first thing I noticed was that mum
had painted her finger nails bright red! It looked like someone had chopped off
the tops of her fingers.
Mum told me that she’d been breathless in the night and had
called for an ambulance. Then a very nice doctor came to discharge her and said
that all she needed was some pills to thin the mucus in her lungs. She was so
rude to him!!! It was embarrassing. She told him how she didn’t need his
advice, how she’d had her tracheotomy for 40 years and had to do everything
herself, how no one came to visit and how he hadn’t even x-rayed her leg!
I explained to her that she’d had her leg x-rayed last week
and didn’t need it x-rayed again. She then railed at him for doing nothing
about her pain. She can't sleep in bed because of the pain. (I wonder who is
sleeping in her bed, then.) So I asked her if she’d used up all her morphine
patches. She gave me one of her withering looks. The doctor ordered some pain-killers, but when the nurse brought some
pills, mum looked at them and said, “I’ve already got these at home.” “And do
you take them?” I asked. “No”, she said. “I don’t like the side-effects.” “The
side effects are being able to breathe, so that you don’t have to call out an
ambulance in the middle of the night.”
The good news was I’d brought the right clothes. These were
the clothes she was going to wear today to the Hospice Day Centre. Yes, the Day
Centre she told me yesterday that she was never going to go to again. She decided
that she was too tired to go to the Hospice and so I took her home. (On the way
out, she wondered if the Hospital shop sold nail varnish remover.)
1:45pm. Phone call from mum’s Hospice Care Nurse. Apparently
mum phoned her yesterday, very angry, to say that the doctor had been to see her
and that he had told her that she didn’t have cancer, and therefore she was
never going to go to the hospice again. The Hospice Care Nurse then telephoned
mum’s doctor for an explanation. The Doctor told her that he’d said no such
thing!
What had happened was that he’d taken
a Community Psychiatric Nurse with him to visit mum.. They
had tried to do a memory test on her, but she was unable to concentrate on what
they said and had scored zero. Mum just kept telling them about her “gruesome”
pain and then got very cross when they challenged her about taking the
medication. She told them “My whole family has got it in for me.” Or in the
words of Julius Caesar, “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got in for me.” (Or was that
Kenneth Williams in a Carry On film?) Anyway, the Hospice Care Nurse confessed
that mum was a very difficult woman. I asked if we should begin thinking about
a “secure” care home for mum. She said
we should play it by ear.
24 November 2012
Buying the new sewing machine was the worst thing she’d ever
done. Why had she given away her old sewing machine that had worked so
wonderfully? (Decided not to go there.)
Had a look at the new machine and compared it with the picture in the
instruction manual. The bit where you put the sewing foot looks nothing like
the picture in the book! Mum has lost
all the original accessories that came with the new machine and has
cannibalised bits from her old machine.
She insists that the machine came with no foot, no needle, no nothing. So I asked her why, when she opened it, if there
was nothing there, she didn’t take it back and complain. She then changed her
story and said that it came with what was on it now. But when I said, “But
you’ve just told me that this is the foot from your old machine”, she got very angry
and started shouting that she’d been sewing for nearly 90 years and she knew
what she was doing. She insisted that this machine was the one she’d used in
the shop and therefore didn’t have any accessories. She wouldn’t have it that
the man had gone to the store room and had given her a brand
new sewing machine in its box. So I said, “If that’s the sewing machine you
used to try out in the shop, where is the foot that was on it in the shop?”
More screaming and shouting at me for trying to tell her about sewing machines
when she’d been sewing all her life.
I bundled her into the car and took her and the sewing machine
back to the shop. The Proprietor confirmed
that mum had cannibalised her sewing machine. He had to put all new parts on
it.
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