Morning all,
Slugsta - hope the op goes well for you Hun - will be thinking of you, fingers crossed its successful and that you recover quickly XXXXXX Glad your Mum is (so far) being OK about not visiting - one less thing for you to stress about !
It seems to me that wherever you look these days, LA's are looking to save money in the short term, with absolutely no thought for the future - I find it incredibly scary. I also think that a lot of the time, they are 'saving' this money almost by stealth, as with the removal of the wardens from supprted housing in your area, as they did with the closure of the LA run homes here, thereby removing all the respite facilities.
Thanks for the info on the platelet jabs - I wonder why its being suggested for me ? I've been told that the pain is caused by joint and nerve damage , so I'm not sure how its supposed to help with that - I'll have to shift myself and try and find out a bit more!
Went to pick Mil up last night and guess what? She had had a fall
And nope, she wasn't using her frame at the time, according to the staff I spoke to. She was doing her usual up and downing and speeding round the place fretting and she went flying up over a small step at the start of a hallway. To add insult to injury, as I was being told about the fall, Mil handed her bag to my daughter whilst she got her coat on, and sticking out of the top of the bag, 2 chocolate bar wrappers. I don't know whether to sigh or scream. Bad bruising only, which is something to be thankful for, I guess - she must have landed on her right side, as both her knee and her hand on that side are wonderful shades of black and blue. I know that she is really hard work and that its a pain to constantly have to remind her that (a) she should use the frame and (b) she really can't have too much by way of snacks and chocolate. But it seems she is without the frame for at least half of the time when I pick her up, and at least 2 or 3 times a week I'm taking sweet and chocolate wrappers out of her pockets or finding them in her bag when she asks me to look and find her lipstick or whatever. I accept that there wll be times she sets off without the frame and the staff will be busy elsewhere so won't see. I accept that she will, if she gets the chance, help herself to whatever sweet stuff she can lay her hands on, even if it isn't hers. But being her being without the frame so often, and the amount of sweet wrappers and so on that I find, suggests that not even a token effort is being made in either of those area's. I've asked nicely, I've explained that I know its a pain but that I'm trying to avoid discomfort and/or injury to Mil, and I've even been really firm once or twice. May as well bang my head on a brick wall
Back home, OH helped her take off her shoes to put her slippers on and discovered that the 'upper' was coming away from the sole on one shoe - I'm as certain as I can be that it was OK yesterday morning, so I'm assuming that happened when she caught her foot on the step she fell over. Anyway, we decided to take her to get new shoes - the only place where we knew we could get her really decent ones that was open at that time was a 20-odd minute drive away, in Broughton, so off we went, with Mil wittering about how she hadn't finished paying for the last pair, how she still had a few weeks left to pay (shades of when she used to buy everything from her mate's catalogue, I think!). We were able to park right outside the shop, got her in there (still talking about paying 'weekly' for new shoes ), got her sat while I started looking and while OH went to the cash point, as we also needed one or two things and thought we might as well get them whilst out. As soon as OH was out of the shop, Mil was up and pegging towards the shoe racks, heading straight for court style shoes with rather high heels.
"Ohhhhhhh - they are nice" as she grabbed at a pair that were more like flipping stilts than shoes. Got her sat back down, collared an assistent, explained we were looking for flat, sturdy, slip on style shoes and gave her Mils size, saying we needed a 'wider' fit. She pointed out several pairs that she thought might fit the bill, but included some that had velcro straps - which were of course the ones Mil eyed up and declared were 'lovely'. Firmly I insisted on slip ons - we've tried velcro for Mil and she simply can't remember to open the velcro to put them on, so tends to slip just the front of her foot into the shoe, then 'walk' on the back of the shoe, which of course isn't safe. The girl looked askance at me as I overrode Mils choices - I guess it must have looked like I was a bossy so and so - but said she would fetch some in a slip on style for Mil to try, and said she would get the wider fits. Mil chipped in -
"Yes - I think I need about 10 inches". I was very good - I held back the muttered 'Don't we all' that sprang to my lips, but even so, the poor girl looked slightly confused by what Mil had said. She brought out several pairs, and although all were the same size, as always , some fitted better than others and quite a few pairs were very obviously too big. Mil explained this to the young girl by telling her she had been on a diet and lost a lot of weight off her feet! She asked me did I think another pair would be OK to wear to the 'hop', and asked if yet another pair could be paid for weekly? (she had that on her brain, last night, obviously). The shop assistent was looking rather bemused, poor thing, by now
OH came back and spotted a pair that she hadn't yet tried on the shelf - very sturdy and the shape reminded me of clogs, but they did look comfortable and supportive and well made. Mil tried them on and declared them lovely. We got her to walk a few steps and they were obviously a good fit, so we settled on them. At which point the assistent mentioned that they were £65 - Mils face was an absolutel picture!"£65" she squeaked. OH told her it was OK, we would 'treat her' (we weren't, but she needs really good shoes whatever the cost, and she could easily afford them, so we just wanted her to agree). We asked for her to keep the shoes on, and left the shop assistent staring after us as we left the shop, with Mil still chunnering on about the cost and paying weekly.
We made a brief stop in another shop, to grab some spare lightbulbs and a couple of other things - and Mil was like an octopus, heading for sweets and bars of chocolate and trying to grab at them - then finally in the car and heading home for tea.
After tea saw Mil in her hell bent on getting into the kitchen loop, really cross about the gate and heading for it every few minutes to rattle and pull at it, shouting through that she couldn't get in
No problems getting her to bed, other than clearly the bruised knee was giving her some pain
I suspect she is going to be very stiff and sore this morning, and that I'm going to have a job getting her up, washed and dressed for DC this morning. There is no guarantee that she wouldn't have fallen even if DC were usually on the ball with the frame - they can't watch her every second and I know how crafty she can be - but it
might have made a difference, it
might have stopped this fall, so I find it all really frustrating
Hope you all have a good day - Slugsta - will be thinking of you xxxx