Elaine, You said it, one to one care is what's required. With the best will in the world many loved ones placed in a NH give up on living. I'm not saying all, but I can't express the awful fear I have of ever ending up in care. It's for sure my wife gave up, in spite of my daily visits of eight and nine hours. She would look cross
at me when I arrived in the mornings, and I'd explain I've been to sleep and wash.
She was under six stone, had pressure sores, oral thrush etc. In the first few weeks after I took her home, she was still on a downward slide and had to be rushed to hospital. It was not surprising to me that she wouldn't eat. They'd had her on a drip and oxygen mask. When I asked to feed her a yogurt, I was told she wouldn't eat. I coaxed to eat it and when the nurse was surprised I asked "If I took a strange young child away from it's Mother, would it eat for me in a strange house?" Informed at the hospital there was nothing they could do for her, I insisted on taking her home, to what I then expected, to die.
A Rapid Response Team of nurses attended her for a week. At the lowest point I was advised by her GP not to sit holding her hand over night, as she was likely to pass away when I went to the toilet or for a drink. Days later he advised I shouldn't try to force feed her, which I ignored to the upset of our daughter.
Yes, it took hours of patience to have her eat and drink to get her weight up to what it is today eight and a half stone. Meals which took two and a half hours now take half an hour. I've learned what and how to feed and give her drinks.
Though she lost her speech more that four years ago we now understand each other as good as ever. It's a two way street to love and be loved, to want and be wanted, to feel each others hurt and reassure each other.
We are so very lucky that I'm able to care for my Jean alone. Both in our seventies and in two weeks time 52yrs married, what more could anyone ask for?
While I've got her, life's well worth living, without her I see little purpose to life.
Elaine, you will have seen many with little to live for. Your a one off, sad to say I met too few of your kind in that line of work. I once asked a member of the staff at the NH: "If, or should you become like the people here, how would you like to come here?" "No way!" Padraig