OH and I went to Cornwall for a week which was lovely. Although I told Mum I was away with work for a week and kept reminding her on the phone she got really upset when I did not visit her. Fortunately Carer the next day warned me so I started the phone conversation with lots of apologies and she was fine. She just said she had been worried about me. I was still ringing every other day.
so I went to visit her on Tuesday morning and she had forgotten about her friend (who had left quarantine the day before). We had a bit of a random conversation which was fine but she was not very pleased when I had to leave due to the next visitor arriving. I had told her I was coming back in the afternoon to take her to hospital and I repeated it again.
When I arrived back to collect her she was giving the poor Carer an ‘ear bashing’ as he was trying to get her to take her dressing gown off (she suddenly taken to wearing it all the time with her day clothes underneath) and put her coat on. So standing outside the patio doors I just said In my stern voice ‘I am not taking you in your dressing gown and if you don’t want your coat on that is fine I will put it in the back of the car‘. So off came the dressing gown quickly.
Unfortunately hospital appointment was a disaster. Appointments were running late so every 10 minutes Mum was asking me to check that she had not been forgotten. It was also a waiting area for all different treatments so she did not understand why other people were seen quicker than her. We eventually got to see the nurse who did an eye sight and other tests and confirmed Mum was suitable for the treatment. We were then advised Mum would have to wait 30 mins for the drops to work. We were also told to go through the consent form. So I am trying to read the procedure information (4pages) and the consent form (3 pages) whilst keeping Mum distracted and of course answer ‘can you check with the reception as I think they have forgotten me’ loop. As time went on and headed past 4pm Mum became more agitated and confused. A nurse did come over and apologise for the delay which did calm Mum a little. We got called in by the Dr but he was concerned that Mum could not really give her consent and we should have been given a different form and a double appointment so that it all could have done with less stress. He was happy to continue to try but would need the consultant to also be involved. As he had to leave the room a couple of times Mum became more agitated and started to get paranoid. She did say she would do it if I thought it was the right thing to do. I said I thought it was. However by the time Dr came back with consultant Mum was shaking, crying and was totally muddled. I told them i thought at this point we should not proceed and they agreed. They advised they do have a procedure for dementia patients including Morning appointments to keep the wait time down and because they understand about sundowning. I did say I had mentioned when booking the appointment that Mum had Alzheimer’s but it appeared the system failed Mum. We could ask to be referred again however the eye test showed her left eye is fine and she can read although her right eye vision is ‘misty’ so i think it is now time to call it a day. I do worry whether this is the right decision and as many others say it is far harder to make the decision for someone else than for yourself.
we did try and get a take away coffee before heading back to the home but it was too late and the queue at that famous burger chain was horrendous. On the good side as we were waiting for OH to pick us up we had a little walk which Mum liked and I am not sure how, but we got her laughing on the drive back.
of course when I rang yesterday she had forgotten all about it.
thank you
@Woo2 ,
@annielou and
@Sarasa for asking.
i had a phone call to say Mum had had a fall today. She was having her lunch and decided she needed the loo, got up and caught her foot on a table leg. Apparently she said she was ok and the more fuss they made the more angry she got. Incident report completed and they were going to try and check her over later.