Blooddiamond, of course we are interested, most of us care deeply about the plight of others in our situation, please keep us informed, we hope your dad's invesitgations prove nothing amiss, and your mum enjoys (or at least accepts) the respite home.
Hi all,
Thank you for that and all the encouragement and advice, so here's an update.
I have literally been home for about half an hour having driven back from the airport. It was with a sense of the inevitable, because the airline have currently lost my suitcase which was stuffed full of pressies for my wife, which I had bought on whims and because she has been an absolute rock for me to cling to.
I went to check out the home Mum is in and I was really pleasantly surprised. It is three houses converted into one and so has the feel of "home" rather than "a home" if you get my meaning? lots of little rooms and nooks and crannies, the residents were not all lined up in their chairs like a waiting room or anything, there were one or two here, one or two there. A lovely garden, Mum has her own room with Ducal furniture, not some plywood effort, she can have her own paintings put up if she wants, the carers there were real carers, not like some i have seen who seem to drag the resident because they are a little slow etc, I met with the weekend manager and also the main manager as well as the district nurse and so on.
If Mum has to go into a home then I would like it to be this one.
I spoke to the manager and decided to tak some of the burden off of my Dad who couldn't quite bring himself to commit his wife of 50+ years to being a permenant resident (she is there for three weeks respite at the moment). So I told the manager that this is where we would like Mum to stay. They were delighted and when I later told Dad that I had preempted him a little, I could see the relief that he felt. He just cannot accept responsibillity and so I did it for him. Despite my own feelings, I would rather be the one people blame than Dad.
I don't think I have worded that very well, but it is very similar to when I was going through my divorce, I never, ever said anything bad against my ex wife, I let people blame me because it protected my two beautiful children. They only got one side of what happened, but because I rarely fought back it never developed into an argument in front of them, they were safe, happy and had their Mum, so what about the truth, they were more important then, as is my Dad now.
I am not trying to be the big brave hero or anything, I just think he needed not to have that burden of guilt.
The very next day he was able to phone the social worker and let her know that I had decided and that he agreed. So now the process has been put in motion and Mum should just continue to stay there without any further upheaval.
One difficult thing was when I asked Mum "Are you happy?", "Oh yes" she replied, "Do you like it here?", "Yes" she replied and hen the crucial one, "Would you be happy to stay here?" I asked her this six times, in six different ways and each time, having answered all the other questions clearly, each time I asked that, she closed her eyes and wouldn't answer. Dad leaned over and asked her and she did the same to him, which made things very hard and emotional because she was clearly saying no.
This clearly upset my Dad and it would have been too easy for me to say "right, we're taking her home", NO, as hard as it was, I had to be the strong one here for Dad, as this was about them, not me and my feelings anymore, I told Dad that I believed it is the little girl in her frightened she is being abandoned, every child of a very young age, on hearing that Mum is going out, will cry and become fearful and want to go with their mum, I told him I believed this was what was happening here and that we needed to decide if she really understood the question, or if she was just avoiding answering because she couldnt. I told Dad that I did not believe Mum was capable anymore of making a decision like that and so took it for her and recommended to Dad that Mum stay here and that he just needed to reassure her.
I cannot pretend this was an easy weekend at all, my brother never spoke to me, though he did phone Dad up to borrow £100. This, the day after he had been into the hospital for his colonoscopy or whatever it is called.
Dad is fine, he does not have the cancer he always thins he has, what he has is a moderately severe disease in the bowel. This is, if not caused by, then at least exascerbated by the fact that Dad does not wash properly anymore. I gave him a pretty graphic description of the cycle I believe he is in at the moment, with going to the toilet, not washing, cooking and eating food etc etc. He is a proud man and I used that in order to get him to think about himself for once, if he is ill, how can he see Mum? he got the picture.
The worst thing I saw during the weekend was when I cleaned the front room, I have seen this before when I was last over and asked my brother to ensure chairs etc were moved when hoovering etc, he assured me they would, yet when I hoovered on saturday evening I found maggots under his chair!!!
I know Dad cant move the chair, it is a special electric chair that I bought for him that lift him up to almost standing, so he can get out of the chair easily, it has a motor and so is moderately heavy, but my brother is only 42, half Dads age and that chair has not moved since the last time I hoovered. Sometimes I despair, but when I left, I noticed that Dad had done a couple of things I had pointed out, like finally wash the towel in the bathroom that was once yellow and was now a dirty grey! He had cleaned the special booster toilet seat he uses, which he never used to, so there is hope and I really pray he begins now to come out of his depression and start taking care of himself. I have nudged him back onto the right path, I just hope he continues down it.
Sorry its a bit long, I will stop there and say thank you all for your comments and encouragement. In a dark and sometimes deaperate time, it is always comforting to know you are not alone.
cheers.
