Morning everyone,
Spamar, poor you - it sounds as though you went with one heck of a wallop! I hope firstly, that the aches and pains from the bumps and bruises has eased, and secondly, that your blood pressure is behaving for you. Sending {{{{{{hugs}}}}}} to you, and to 2jays - hoping that the pain has eased for you, and that you have recovered enough to lose the limp - even if you are not quite comfortable enough to tackle the housework yet
xxxx
I feel for you and your OH having to deal with your Mum in laws attitudes, Amy. After the loss of Fil, all OH's work related stress and the stress of moving your Mum into the memory unit, I can see just how much her behaviour would be particularly hard to deal with at the moment
Sending you {{{{{hugs}}}}} too x
Red, I was also wondering how you had got in with the arrangements for your Dad's ashes - I really hope your brother hasn't caused any more stress and hard work for you xxxx
2jays - the advice to listen to rational thinking is good, and I do try. I do know that there really wasn't any other option than to go down this route with Mil and residential care. I don't think either OH or I are at the point of acceptance - but we keep talking, keep reassuring each other, I keep listening to all of the Bizarrites and I keep bashing the GM, and I hope acceptance will come soon.
Its been a mad busy weekend. Saturday, I went to an open day - to do with work - at a college quite a distance away - I was worried it would be a wash out after the open day that I'd gone to at another college earlier in the week, but actually, it was really good - very much a case of worth the effort. We are nearly at the end of our zoo annual pass, (though I've made it very clear that I'd like another one for Christmas this year
) so OH, dau and I headed there around lunch time yesterday. A bit cold, but the zoo was quiet and much to our delight, the baby otters were out and so dau and I had a great time with our cameras
On the way home, we went to visit Mil. We thought that by timing the visit for 4.30, half an hour (we presumed) before the evening meal, that if Mil was as bad as she was the other day, the meal being served would help make us leaving easier for her and us. We were a bit surprised to get in there and find Mil already tucking into a large bowl of ice cream as her pudding - it seemed awfully early for them all to be having tea!
Mil was once again sat apart from everyone else - the main dining area is at the far end of the large 'day' room, but just as you go through the door into the room, there is a table where the staff seem to sit when they are doing paperwork - Mil was sat there. She barely spared us a greeting, she was just so intent on spooning up the ice cream as fast as she could. She didn't speak, didn't respond to us, just scooped up her pud and belted it in, with as much ice cream ending up on her and the floor as made it to her mouth
As she ate, both OH and I saw that her lower right arm was pretty badly bruised, and she had some skin tears there, and it was obvious that they had been caused by someone gripping her arm - they weren't in the right 'place' for her to have been able to have caused them herself, but were still clearly made by a fingers and nails. I'm not suggesting that she is being abused, btw - both OH and I are pretty sure that this would most likely be another incident where Mil has been in an altercation with another resident - and that the chances are that she might well have 'started' whatever the incident was. But we did wonder how much this had to do with her sitting by herself again, and if this is the 'norm' because of her behaviour. There were more bruises on the backs of her hands - and again, from experience, those were probably down to her banging on doors - she has a trick of first knocking, then sort of turning her hands round and using the backs of her hands to bang - we saw it so many times when she was here, and even whilst she was at the hospital.
There wasn't an opportunity to collar a member of staff and ask quietly - all the staff were 'on the floor' so to speak, and busy with residents and other visitors. Afterwards, OH and I wondered about Mil sitting by herself - not in a 'complaining way', because we can both see that if Mil is being irritated by and aggressive towards others, then giving her a bit of distance is probably best for her - but if that is the case, then its just so sad, as she was always such a sociable lady, pre-dementia.
Once the ice cream was finally finished, and Mil came up for air, I don't think she really had much of a clue as to who OH and I were - she never once used our names, or said anything that indicated that she was aware of any connection with us. She did, however, greet dau really warmly and got her name right - though again, not sure if she knew who dau is to her. Within about 5 minutes the
'Well - time I was going home' started - nowhere near as agitated as my last visit, but persistent and repetative, with her repeatedly getting up from her seat. Over and over we fed her a long line of distractions and love lies, she would appear to listen, maybe even say OK - and then with the next breath
"Right - I'm going now", "Come on, lets go home now", "I'll see you later - I'm going home now". On perhaps 3 separate occasions, as we tried to reassure her and give her a reason why she couldn't go 'yet', she looked at us blankly and said
"I don't understand what you mean", before going back into the 'going home' loop. It really seemed that what we were saying just made no sense to her at all - though whether that was her struggling with following a sentence or just not understanding the context of what we were saying within what she believed to be the reality, I don't know. We had a few comments about her going back to school and a couple of references to her Dad giving her money, but mainly it was 'home'. When her eyes started filling with tears, after about 30 minutes, and her remarks about home starting to get a bit tetchy and distressed, we made our excuses and left. She tried to come with us, and again, to be fair, a member of staff was there straight away and managed to distract her.
I was very, VERY glad that she wasn't as agitated as she was on my previous visit - I hadn't really wanted dau to come with us, just in case, but she was adamant that she wanted to see her Nana, and I think she was really pleased that Nana had seemed so warm with her. But, dau wasn't impressed with the home - she found it sad and I think that the very residential, institutional setting wasn't quite what she had imagined - she said that its 'not like a proper home, is it?' a couple of times. I had to agree that no, it wasn't - but explained that though its perhaps not what she or I would consider a 'nice' environment, because of the dementia, that sort of environment meets Nana's needs better now, than we could in a 'proper home'. Not sure if she was convinced. As she talked about the home - the smell of cooking, all the 'plasticky chairs, all alike', all the people 'just sitting', etc - I could sort of see it in very sharp detail through her eyes. Brought home to me how very different it is from what we would have wished for, for Mil. Again - that's something I am going to have to learn to deal with, sadly.
Right - time for me to start work - hope you guys all have a good day xxxxx