It was 17th October last year that my Mum broke her hip and eventually ended up in the Nursing Home. Her Care Home had been quite happy to accept her "vagueness", which was one of the symptoms of her vascular dementia and she didn't have any hallucinations while she was there. The routine of meal times was enough to keep her focussed in the right time of day and all seemed well.
A fall turned her world upside down and I feel like I've lost my real Mum for good. She has good days and bad days, but I find the NH so depressing. It is hard to know what to talk about and I try and play cards or dominoes with her to keep her mind active. She can't walk and there seems to be no future for her. Yet she is only 81 and in many ways in good health for her age, but she has lost weight and is less than 7 stone. She apparently eats well.
I've been feeling down just recently and I've started to dread the NH visits, although I do try to view them in as positive way as possible. I'm an only child, so I'm the only person who visits her. My children just visit occaisionally when I go with them.
My husband had to look at her house with the gas engineer, because the boiler needs replacing. He said it seemed really strange seeing the tenant's furniture in Mum's house-so familiar and yet so different. Life is just going on without her and she seems to have nothing left to look forward to. I've got loads of her things in my house, but she can't see them here and there isn't room for them in her NH room.
It is awful having to keep explaining where she is and trying to avoid telling her that people have died, maybe 40 years ago. It's like walking on eggshells all the time. I'm just feeling a very deep sadness at the moment and there seems to be no solution.
Kayla
A fall turned her world upside down and I feel like I've lost my real Mum for good. She has good days and bad days, but I find the NH so depressing. It is hard to know what to talk about and I try and play cards or dominoes with her to keep her mind active. She can't walk and there seems to be no future for her. Yet she is only 81 and in many ways in good health for her age, but she has lost weight and is less than 7 stone. She apparently eats well.
I've been feeling down just recently and I've started to dread the NH visits, although I do try to view them in as positive way as possible. I'm an only child, so I'm the only person who visits her. My children just visit occaisionally when I go with them.
My husband had to look at her house with the gas engineer, because the boiler needs replacing. He said it seemed really strange seeing the tenant's furniture in Mum's house-so familiar and yet so different. Life is just going on without her and she seems to have nothing left to look forward to. I've got loads of her things in my house, but she can't see them here and there isn't room for them in her NH room.
It is awful having to keep explaining where she is and trying to avoid telling her that people have died, maybe 40 years ago. It's like walking on eggshells all the time. I'm just feeling a very deep sadness at the moment and there seems to be no solution.
Kayla
