morning all - albeit a very early morning! My body clock appears to be completely messed up after a night with very little sleep, and here i am, very wide awake since 4a.m. This morning!
Thank you so much to all of you for the support and advice - can't tell you how much i appreciate it xxxxxx julie, welcome to the bizarrites, hun, sounds like you have your hands full too! - and grace - hope you haven't been having too bad a time with your mil xxxx
got mil to the district nurse clinic - our first face to face encounter there. Getting her washed and dressed to go was an absolute nightmare - uncooperative in the manner of a stroppy toddler i think is the best description of how mil was being. And i do understand that after the night she had had, that was totally expected and understandable. Even if she had been out of a&e in a reasonable amount of time, there would have been some sort of reaction - the fact that she had more or less spent all night there just made the 'reaction' a lot worse.
At the surgery, worse chaos than usual with not enough parking due to a flu jab clinic being in full swing and not able to park as close to the door as would have helped. Mil's walking was dreadful and i had a heck of a job getting her into the actual building. I don't think it was anything to do with the injury, more that the 'parkinsons gait', tiny little shuffling steps and very unsteady, was really, really bad, the worst i've ever seen it, from the second she got out of the car. We had a couple of near-misses with stumbles on her way in, was glad to get her sat down. Called through after about 5 minutes, (during which time mil thought we were waiting to board a ferry!) nurse stripped off the dressing i'd put on, while mil gave her a totally ficticious account of how she had hurt her leg by falling over getting out of bed in her room! I explained that although we were not 100% sure how she had done it, that she certainly had not fallen in her room. Lemony, you mention iodine - the dn wasn't impressed that the hospital clearly hadn't treated it with any sort of antiseptic - first thing she did was put a sort of gauze, soaked in iodine, over the top of the wound. The nurse was nice, but again, its that ignorance about dementia, that for some reason always amazes me when i deal with health professionals who are not dementia specialists. As she searched in her supply for a dressing big enough, she explained to mil about the importance of leaving the dressing alone and gave me a satisfied 'nod', (as if the problem was now 'sorted') when mil earnestly promised that she 'wouldn't touch it'. She then proceeded to tell me that she would see mil again on monday and would have a script for 'spare' dressings for me then. She looked quite shocked when i explained that was actually no use. That mil would almost certainly remove the dressing any number of times between now (thursday) and monday. That the size of the dressings was far bigger than the ones carried as stock in the chemists so i wouldn't be able to just buy them, that i would need a prescription before then. She said she would give me one spare dressing - i told her mils record, with a skin tear on her arm, was removing the dressing 6 times in one day. She reluctantly added 2 more spares, telling me that it was important that the wound not be 'fiddled with' and that i would have to 'watch mil'. Yep - its obviously possible for me to stand guard over her, 24 hours a day and not let her out of my sight for the maybe 5 minutes its would take for her to get the dressing off, if that's what she decided to do. I explained again (and through gritted teeth) that mil can't remember to leave the dressing alone. That it was almost inevitable she would remove it, despite the nurse insisting that the particular dressings she was using were 'difficult' to get off. I really felt like i was having to be a right pain, trying to get through to her, but eventually, she said she would try and organise having a script ready sooner, so i would have a decent supply for the weekend. However, she couldn't guarantee it (i'll find out this morning and am prepared to have to go into battle again if it hasn't been done!).
Back home and the rest of the day was just horrible. I lost count of the number of times i had to stop mil attempting to remove the dressing (despite knee high pop socks and trousers) - she was really annoyed, simply couldn't understand why she couldn't take it off. "its itchy, ann - i just want to scratch it!". Again and again i explained and on each occasion i got a sigh and an eye roll - then two minutes later went through the whole routine again. Oddly she really didn't seem to have any other discomfort from it - the wound looks really dreadful, the nurse measured it in front of me and its 5 and a half inches in length, 2 and a half wide, so quite a substantial injury, yet each time i asked was she comfortable or was she in pain, the response was 'pain? Where?' she repeatedly forgot that she had hurt her leg at all - she told me several times that there was 'nothing wrong' with her leg - it was just itchy. As with leaving the dressing alone, had a similar battle getting her to keep her leg elevated - we have recliners but she continuously tried to put the foot rest down and had to be reminded that she must keep her leg up and rested. Not being able to scratch, having to be repeatedly asked to keep her foot up, put her in a really foul mood. She nagged and pestered, demanded to go home, came out with an ever changing list of people who were waiting for her there (most of whom we had never heard of), went on and on about how she only had to 'catch a bus from the dublin road' and she could be home in 5 minutes. Asking us to run her home, to call her a taxi, to phone her family. As the day went on, she got increasingly rude and attention seeking. It was exactly the attitude of a petulant and defiant child, so extremely irritating and wearying to deal with. Non-stop nagging combined with getting up every couple of minutes for a variety of ficticious reasons or because (as she told us) 'i just want to get up if you don't mind. I don't need to give you a reason!'.
Just after 8pm, oh - who really doesn't do well on little sleep and who was struggling to cope with her behaviour - strongly suggested that she went to bed. She refused at first, but then said she wanted to go. She then argued that she would get her tablets herself, refusing to sit at the table to take them (if she doesn't sit at the table, they inevitably get dropped everywhere) - and when i did get her sat down, each time i went to get the meds, she got up again. Eventually got her sat, brought out the meds, water and her inhalers. She took the first inhaler, but with the second one, she kept peering into the opening that she was supposed to inhale from and insisting it was empty because she couldn't see any numbers in there. In vain i showed her the dial on the front that shows how many doses are left and each time she said 'oh -right' took the inhaler back, brought it to her mouth and stopped half way insisting again that 'look - its empty, there are no numbers'. It must have taken nearly 15 minutes for her to finally take the inhaler.
Upstairs, she had me ready to scream
you know how a small child will aggrivate by messing about when you ask them to do something - thats what she was like. I handed her the clean pj's and asked her to get undressed. She took her top off, then picked up the pj jacket and started examining it. I aked her to please get undressed. 'in a minute - i just want to do this first'. She folded the jacket, placed it over the edge of the bath - then picked it up again and started to try and fasten the buttons. Then, when i asked her to stop, she put it down - only to immediately pick it up again and again 'examine it'. In the end, i took it from her hands and put the pjs outside the bathroom door, asking her again to please get undressed. She smiled and turned her back to me and started to brush her fingers over the cistern and the edge of the mirror, as though looking for dust or dirt. I asked her again to please get undressed. 'i'm just looking for something' she said and stood gazing at the built in cupboard and shelves. No 'please' this time - i told her to stop messing about and get undressed. 'in my own time' she said. In the end, i told her i was fetching oh and that he would undress her if she wouldn't do it herself. That got her stripping off - but oh, sooooooooo slowly. Got her into the clean pull ups (if i am not there, she doesn't put them on so i have to supervise) and left her to finish getting ready. More than had enough - just hoping i don't pay for it this morning, with a wet bed, because i guess there is a chance that she took the pull ups off as i didn't see her into bed as usual.
Half an hour later, she came back downstairs, insisting she had to speak to mrs clark - no, haven't a blummin' clue who that is - oh really shouted at her and sent her marching back up the stairs, with her stopping every couple of steps to call him a 'b******' and fling a two fingered salute in his direction.
I'd been wondering if she should go to day care today, but after yesterday, its a no brainer! With any luck, going back to the usual routine will help settle her - even if it doesn't, she is still going!
Its going to be a long weekend, with oh working 12 hour shifts today, sunday and monday (when she will have to miss day care for dn appontment, which of course, is in the middle of the day!). To balance that, i'm booking her into day care for next saturday, as its now been decided that we will be going to the zoo for oldests birthday then. I'm concentrating on looking forard to that, as a way of getting through this weekend!
Hope you all have a good day xxxxx
