My mother has .dementia but is still nice and not too difficult. I have decided to start a thread about looking after her as I think it would be good for me as I have mental health problems myself. I think I do a good enough job looking after her and I am amazed at myself. It is also amazing that the rest of the family trust me with her care.
We recently moved into supported housing - it's a complex of little bungalows stuck on to one another. Our old house had awful steps at the door and in the end mother was sleeping downstairs . We investigated getting a shower room on the ground floor etc and got planning permission but it would have been very expensive. A friend of my brother told him that one of these little bungalows was for sale but it was not an easy process buying it but we succeeded in the end by eg the family raiding their savings so we had a cash bid - they got this back when the old house was sold. Then the two of us had to wait a couple of months whilst the bungalow was redecorated and a wet room installed. I had a lot of say in this but didn't get everything I wanted - I got wooden floors but not pink walls in the sittingroom they had to be off-white but I got to pick which shade(clotted cream). Lavender in the bedroom as I requested.
So we moved in in November 2017 and it's great - I can push mother in and out the door in her wheelchair easily - the only thing I had to do was buy a little metal ramp. You should see the size of the muscles in my arms - this is something I like as I used to lift weights. If I take her to the gate in the hedge we can go on a flat road(the entry way to the complex is quite steep) - before we lived on a hill. Actually we moved less than a mile.
I am amazed I am living here - I feel astonished the whole time. And things have legally been arranged so that I can stay here until the end of my life myself (before there was no provision for me so I am very relieved).
Now we have settled in to a routine. Three days a week mother goes to a day centre which I have often visited - in the morning they get a homemade scone and a cup of tea - the scone is delicious I have had it often myself. Then I think they have a wee look at the newspapers and sometimes a man comes who plays guitar and mother is very good at keeping time with a tambourine. The bus collects her in the morning quite early and I head off for my break usually McDonald's where the staff all know us. I have to wait on a Friday for the medicine to be delivered in medipaks - it used to be just put through the letterbox but things have been tightened up recently they have to be handed to you but I still get a reasonable amount of time in McDonald's. The food there is healthier than its former reputation would make you think eg mother gets porridge.
On the other days of the week we do things together such as going to McDonalds at the crack of dawn as neither of us like to lie in bed once we have woken up - I share a bedroom with mother who does not mind my snoring.
Today as I write I am sitting beside mother outside and she is complaining she is cold on one of the hottest days of the year so far..She seemed to be unsettled by a pizza delivery prior to that she was sleeping in her chair. Trouble is often when she gets home she of ten wants to out again 5 minutes later. This evening we are actually going out again to a poetry reading accompanied by music but we have to wait and she doen't understand.
We recently moved into supported housing - it's a complex of little bungalows stuck on to one another. Our old house had awful steps at the door and in the end mother was sleeping downstairs . We investigated getting a shower room on the ground floor etc and got planning permission but it would have been very expensive. A friend of my brother told him that one of these little bungalows was for sale but it was not an easy process buying it but we succeeded in the end by eg the family raiding their savings so we had a cash bid - they got this back when the old house was sold. Then the two of us had to wait a couple of months whilst the bungalow was redecorated and a wet room installed. I had a lot of say in this but didn't get everything I wanted - I got wooden floors but not pink walls in the sittingroom they had to be off-white but I got to pick which shade(clotted cream). Lavender in the bedroom as I requested.
So we moved in in November 2017 and it's great - I can push mother in and out the door in her wheelchair easily - the only thing I had to do was buy a little metal ramp. You should see the size of the muscles in my arms - this is something I like as I used to lift weights. If I take her to the gate in the hedge we can go on a flat road(the entry way to the complex is quite steep) - before we lived on a hill. Actually we moved less than a mile.
I am amazed I am living here - I feel astonished the whole time. And things have legally been arranged so that I can stay here until the end of my life myself (before there was no provision for me so I am very relieved).
Now we have settled in to a routine. Three days a week mother goes to a day centre which I have often visited - in the morning they get a homemade scone and a cup of tea - the scone is delicious I have had it often myself. Then I think they have a wee look at the newspapers and sometimes a man comes who plays guitar and mother is very good at keeping time with a tambourine. The bus collects her in the morning quite early and I head off for my break usually McDonald's where the staff all know us. I have to wait on a Friday for the medicine to be delivered in medipaks - it used to be just put through the letterbox but things have been tightened up recently they have to be handed to you but I still get a reasonable amount of time in McDonald's. The food there is healthier than its former reputation would make you think eg mother gets porridge.
On the other days of the week we do things together such as going to McDonalds at the crack of dawn as neither of us like to lie in bed once we have woken up - I share a bedroom with mother who does not mind my snoring.
Today as I write I am sitting beside mother outside and she is complaining she is cold on one of the hottest days of the year so far..She seemed to be unsettled by a pizza delivery prior to that she was sleeping in her chair. Trouble is often when she gets home she of ten wants to out again 5 minutes later. This evening we are actually going out again to a poetry reading accompanied by music but we have to wait and she doen't understand.
