So, we have a bit of a crisis on our hands and it is my worst nightmare. Not mum who’s fallen and had to go to hospital, but my Dad.
This happened yesterday afternoon so I had the 4. 5 hour drive from Essex to Wales, and now it’s just me and mum in the house. Dad is likely to be in hospital for some time it seems, no broken bones but now he’s been formally assessed it’s clear his mobility is extremely poor and he needs a lot of physio to have any hope of being considered safe enough to go home. He has a severe UTI so that need to be cleared before they can fully assess him.
I must say mum’s social worker has been pretty well on the ball. I made it clear straight away to the carer who came this morning that I cannot stay here for more than about five days at a time and will need to go home for about that length of time between visits. She completely agreed and said she would make a report accordingly to the care manager. They immediately got the social worker on the case and arrangements are in place for three support visits a day to Mum starting on Friday. Her main need is for support with getting food prepared and reminding about drinks. Shopping and laundry I can organise, and there is already a cleaning lady. I am not telling mum about this in advance, just planning to welcome whoever turns up on Friday with a big smile and say look, these kind people are going to pop in to make sure you have everything you need when I go home tomorrow. I am worried that she will not cope but she has already refused to even think about going to a care home temporarily and is considered to have capacity to make that choice. I am worried but having read so many of the threads here, I think this is the best approach. The carers are very professional and will report any concerns they have to social services and that seems to work better than family members trying to hold it all together.
However...I am not coping well with some of Mums delusions. I know we are supposed to enter the PWD’s world and all that but I just can’t. She is insistent that the neighbours have demolished the dividing wall between the two houses at first floor level and have been putting crockery in the top of her wardrobe (which is fitted to that wall so would have collapsed had any demolition been going on!). And that they are working on the wall all night now they’ve been told to rebuild it. The house next door is actually unoccupied and she is so profoundly deaf that I have to bellow at her from a few feet away to have any chance of being heard! She has started to go into a lot of highly inappropriate detail about my dad‘s intimate life, which I deal with by getting up and going off to do something else. Plus her fixation that I have taken control of their finances and transferred everything including the house to my name, this is pure fiction and I just cannot go along with it. She claims of course that my father has told her I have done this with his blessing, again pure fiction. Any ideas for how to deal with this better, because at this rate I’ll be ready to kill her by Friday! Leaving the room for 10 minutes then returning with a smile and a suggestion of a coffee or choosing what to have for dinner does help temporarily until she starts the repeat performance.
She has no empathy for my Dad’s current situation and wants to me to go and collect him so he is here to look after her. At least I can truthfully say that I cannot do that because I’m not allowed to enter the hospital, though this is making the whole situation more difficult as he has no means of communicating with us except through the nurses.
Sorry for the rant, I know this is nothing compared with what many of you deal with daily, year in and year out, but my relationship with mum has always been a bit fiery and this situation brings out the worst in both of us, I think.
This happened yesterday afternoon so I had the 4. 5 hour drive from Essex to Wales, and now it’s just me and mum in the house. Dad is likely to be in hospital for some time it seems, no broken bones but now he’s been formally assessed it’s clear his mobility is extremely poor and he needs a lot of physio to have any hope of being considered safe enough to go home. He has a severe UTI so that need to be cleared before they can fully assess him.
I must say mum’s social worker has been pretty well on the ball. I made it clear straight away to the carer who came this morning that I cannot stay here for more than about five days at a time and will need to go home for about that length of time between visits. She completely agreed and said she would make a report accordingly to the care manager. They immediately got the social worker on the case and arrangements are in place for three support visits a day to Mum starting on Friday. Her main need is for support with getting food prepared and reminding about drinks. Shopping and laundry I can organise, and there is already a cleaning lady. I am not telling mum about this in advance, just planning to welcome whoever turns up on Friday with a big smile and say look, these kind people are going to pop in to make sure you have everything you need when I go home tomorrow. I am worried that she will not cope but she has already refused to even think about going to a care home temporarily and is considered to have capacity to make that choice. I am worried but having read so many of the threads here, I think this is the best approach. The carers are very professional and will report any concerns they have to social services and that seems to work better than family members trying to hold it all together.
However...I am not coping well with some of Mums delusions. I know we are supposed to enter the PWD’s world and all that but I just can’t. She is insistent that the neighbours have demolished the dividing wall between the two houses at first floor level and have been putting crockery in the top of her wardrobe (which is fitted to that wall so would have collapsed had any demolition been going on!). And that they are working on the wall all night now they’ve been told to rebuild it. The house next door is actually unoccupied and she is so profoundly deaf that I have to bellow at her from a few feet away to have any chance of being heard! She has started to go into a lot of highly inappropriate detail about my dad‘s intimate life, which I deal with by getting up and going off to do something else. Plus her fixation that I have taken control of their finances and transferred everything including the house to my name, this is pure fiction and I just cannot go along with it. She claims of course that my father has told her I have done this with his blessing, again pure fiction. Any ideas for how to deal with this better, because at this rate I’ll be ready to kill her by Friday! Leaving the room for 10 minutes then returning with a smile and a suggestion of a coffee or choosing what to have for dinner does help temporarily until she starts the repeat performance.
She has no empathy for my Dad’s current situation and wants to me to go and collect him so he is here to look after her. At least I can truthfully say that I cannot do that because I’m not allowed to enter the hospital, though this is making the whole situation more difficult as he has no means of communicating with us except through the nurses.
Sorry for the rant, I know this is nothing compared with what many of you deal with daily, year in and year out, but my relationship with mum has always been a bit fiery and this situation brings out the worst in both of us, I think.