Hello there,
My first time post. I have a longer post to explain my personal situation with my elderly father which I have no doubt resonates with so many others, but my current issue is this one: Dad not putting his cordless phone back on its base so the phone is ringing but obviously not his end. This has happened many times before and I've been fraught with worry and have ended up calling a neighbour and his landlord to go check on him. He then calls me with 'Oh.. well you know.. I had the volume down or I must have turned the phone off..' no concern at all for my worry! More recently he's become very forgetful however we always speak every single night, just for 5 mins.. either I call or he calls.
Last Wednesday, due to all the phone scams he was receiving, the last scam telling him to make a bank transfer!!!, I suggested, and he agreed, though he couldn't remember why, to have his landline number changed. The change took place today so I said to him last week.. "there might be some disruption whilst the number gets changed so if you don't hear from me by 9pm Dad, call me'. Last night, my aunt called me to say she'd been trying to call Dad several times, phone just kept ringing and ringing. I tried the same, then about half an hour later, Dad calls 'have you been trying to ring me? I must have turned the phone off.' So this morning, when I'm trying to ring him to tell him his number has now been changed, I get the unanswered ringing tone... all day long. So I'm thinking that again, he's not put the phone back on the base unit. However, I thought he might call me tonight if I hadn't run by 9pm but of course, nope. I've tried to call his nearby neighbour by they have CallProtect set up so my call is just going to answerphone.. So frustrating!!! I'm hoping that Dad is absolutely fine and just can't hear the phone, and that he's having a poor memory day and not thought to call me, but at the back of my mind, I'm obviously really worried something's happened. Oh, and we're 5 hours drive away. I'll have to try again tomorrow and if I can't get hold of neighbours again, I'll have to ask his landlord to go down and see if he's ok. As you can imagine, the frustration, and worry, is immense.
Dad will not have internet installed, hates technology and not sure now whether he can cope with any technological devices. He has a mobile but it's never charged or switched on. He's extremely stubborn. I'll give Age UK a call tomorrow about other devices but if anyone has any suggestions, please kindly advise.