I am 50 years old and in a wheelchair. I can neither stand or walk. I live with my 83 year old Mother. She is a widow who hates all doctors, refuses to take any medicine and, due to her dementia, she has become an alcoholic. She has a drink, forgets about it, has another one and so on and so on. This is now starting in the mornings.
Because of my own condition, I am in close touch with the medical services but, because we live in a small country village and because we have no access to transport, whenever I try to get help, they just don't want to know.
"Go here, go there, go to this group, join that group" they tell me but since I cannot get out of the house, these things are impossible.
Mother's dementia is in its fairly early stages at the moment. she can still do the Telegraph crossword (the cryptic one) in less than half an hour but she does not know what day or month it is neither can she remember the name of our new dog - new since two Januarys ago. He gets called all the names of dogs she has had since 1940!
She has become fiercely protective of her house and her land and, as a result, has managed to alienate both of us from all our neighbours.
My only close friend lives 50 miles away and my two half-sisters (not my mother's children) live 300 miles away in the North. Mother resents them like hell and thinks that they are just waiting to snaffle her money when she dies. (rubbish!)
The worst thing to live with, though, is the drinking. When she is sober, she is still almost rational but when he is drunk......God help me! If I try to say anything, I am told that we have no fun, no life and how dare I suggest that she stops her 'only little pleasure'. - And if I have to live through the story of her father's death in 1927 or her WW2 or her horrid racist views for much longer without help, it might just be me who goes totally mad first!!!!
Sorry to winge!
Jonathan.
Because of my own condition, I am in close touch with the medical services but, because we live in a small country village and because we have no access to transport, whenever I try to get help, they just don't want to know.
"Go here, go there, go to this group, join that group" they tell me but since I cannot get out of the house, these things are impossible.
Mother's dementia is in its fairly early stages at the moment. she can still do the Telegraph crossword (the cryptic one) in less than half an hour but she does not know what day or month it is neither can she remember the name of our new dog - new since two Januarys ago. He gets called all the names of dogs she has had since 1940!
She has become fiercely protective of her house and her land and, as a result, has managed to alienate both of us from all our neighbours.
My only close friend lives 50 miles away and my two half-sisters (not my mother's children) live 300 miles away in the North. Mother resents them like hell and thinks that they are just waiting to snaffle her money when she dies. (rubbish!)
The worst thing to live with, though, is the drinking. When she is sober, she is still almost rational but when he is drunk......God help me! If I try to say anything, I am told that we have no fun, no life and how dare I suggest that she stops her 'only little pleasure'. - And if I have to live through the story of her father's death in 1927 or her WW2 or her horrid racist views for much longer without help, it might just be me who goes totally mad first!!!!
Sorry to winge!
Jonathan.