I posted a few months back just to introduce myself. Mum (64) has now been in a care home for just under three months. The mve finally became inevitable as she was living on her own and started wandering at night.
The home she is in is really lovely - a nice, modern building with great carers, good cakes (very important to her!) and the ability to walk around freely.
The only problem is that it is comparatively far away from her old home - just under 20 miles (20 minutes by car or 45 minutes by bus). This has meant that some of Mum's friends have given me a lot of grief for not putting her in one of the homes in town. The reason why I haven't done so is that they are simply nowhere near as good. One has basically just been closed down, one is just a psychiatric ward and the other two are poky, old and look like hospitals from 20 years ago. As she has been sectioned she would also be confined to the one corridor of her ward, whereas in the home she is currently in she has been tagged electronically so she can walk around the enture home and garden - and she walks a lot.
Her friends now think that a 20 minute drive is absolutely unacceptable and consequently "won't be able to visit more often than every couple of months". The way I see it they are finding it hard to deal with the illness, especially given tat Mum is so young and most of them are roughly the same age. Consequently, they are trying their hardest to off-load their frustration onto me. This has led them to come up with wild accusations and claims, often based on knowledge gained from the local newspaper and radio chat shows, that I am systematically doing everything to make Mum's situation worse. The fact that I sometimes take her out for lunch or dinner now apparently means that I am not doing anyting but just coming home on holiday. When the home mixed up her laundry with that of another resident this simple mix-up was clearly not an adequate explanation - really, one of Mum's friends told me, I subconsciously want to punish my mother and therefore deliberately only provided her with two old jumpers to wear. My reply, that I distinctly remember taking several suitcases full of warm jumpers over there and the whole thing must have been a mistake, was just regarded as a lie.
Anyway, I am tempted to ramble. Luckily I have a lot of support from some other friends and all the doctors and carers (some of whom are connected to old colleagues / friends of Mum's as well), who all agree that the home she is currently in is the best solution for the time being. Was just wondering what techniques others have for dealing with those people who always know better even though they've never actually done anything constructive.
Best,
Tom
The home she is in is really lovely - a nice, modern building with great carers, good cakes (very important to her!) and the ability to walk around freely.
The only problem is that it is comparatively far away from her old home - just under 20 miles (20 minutes by car or 45 minutes by bus). This has meant that some of Mum's friends have given me a lot of grief for not putting her in one of the homes in town. The reason why I haven't done so is that they are simply nowhere near as good. One has basically just been closed down, one is just a psychiatric ward and the other two are poky, old and look like hospitals from 20 years ago. As she has been sectioned she would also be confined to the one corridor of her ward, whereas in the home she is currently in she has been tagged electronically so she can walk around the enture home and garden - and she walks a lot.
Her friends now think that a 20 minute drive is absolutely unacceptable and consequently "won't be able to visit more often than every couple of months". The way I see it they are finding it hard to deal with the illness, especially given tat Mum is so young and most of them are roughly the same age. Consequently, they are trying their hardest to off-load their frustration onto me. This has led them to come up with wild accusations and claims, often based on knowledge gained from the local newspaper and radio chat shows, that I am systematically doing everything to make Mum's situation worse. The fact that I sometimes take her out for lunch or dinner now apparently means that I am not doing anyting but just coming home on holiday. When the home mixed up her laundry with that of another resident this simple mix-up was clearly not an adequate explanation - really, one of Mum's friends told me, I subconsciously want to punish my mother and therefore deliberately only provided her with two old jumpers to wear. My reply, that I distinctly remember taking several suitcases full of warm jumpers over there and the whole thing must have been a mistake, was just regarded as a lie.
Anyway, I am tempted to ramble. Luckily I have a lot of support from some other friends and all the doctors and carers (some of whom are connected to old colleagues / friends of Mum's as well), who all agree that the home she is currently in is the best solution for the time being. Was just wondering what techniques others have for dealing with those people who always know better even though they've never actually done anything constructive.
Best,
Tom