My Mother isn't good I was told. She has Alzheimer's disease and is now in residential care. Jim and I headed down to Fife on Wednesday - up at 4am to feed animals who seemed perplexed at the early call.
My Mother perked up and I took her for a short walk. She didn't want to put her shoes on but keep on her slippers, so we shuffled along the road to where she used to do voluntary work, help out at a lunch club. She couldn't remember it - going there for twenty odd years, but surprisingly there was a flicker of recognition when I mentioned a woman who worked beside her, but when I spoke about this woman's daughter the shutters came down, she was back in the confusion of the damnable disease. She is hardly grey, still has a fantastic figure and looks much younger than her 76 years, but she's gone - is no longer present for the majority of the time.
I was lucky - visited her on an up day. We laughed at a builder leaning out of a half constructed roof, a dog taking itself for a walk that was too busy to stop and chat. I picked lavender from some municipal planting and she kept rubbing it and sniffing it. The sense of smell is strong. She grew lavender hedging and would make beautiful bags that she filled with the flower heads. When we went to leave she tried to sneak out with us a couple of times. She was as agile as the cat who has its own chair in the lounge ( where thankfully the TV isn't permanently switched on).
The matron came and distracted her, lead her back to the dining room where lunch smelt imminent. I felt guilty, felt like a bad daughter, but also fear - is this my fate? Will I end up in a home wearing clothes I did not pick, surrounded by people who are paid to care for me with only a snatch of my past scattered around a tiny bedroom?
We briefly called in on a couple of friends then headed back up the long road. We got back after 11pm.
On Thursday we had to take Weemon back to the vet so he could see how his eye is doing. Again dye was put in his eye and we could see the hole that has caused the problem. The vet is pleased the way it's healing fast and said he thought he would have had to remove it. In a fortnight, if the eye is still clouded we will get steroid drops, which he would rather not give, but he trusts us to see if there is that need and he will post the drops out. They are so good like that in the Highlands - understand the distances that have to be travelled.
Last year I had an awful outbreak of cocidious {sp?} in newly hatched chicks. I phoned the vet, he diagnosed over the phone and left medicine and syringes behind a litter bin in the vet's surgery car park as the vet's was about to close.
We still have mad weather - all the seasons in one day, but we eat the fruits of our labours. Salads are compulsory.
Today I must tackle the pea, mange tout and bean surpluses and dig more tatties and build a house and weed acres and acres and acres of ground, but first lunch and a read of yesterday's newspaper.
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Caroline, what a full life you lead and you write about it so well - I could smell the lavender as well as the imminent lunch at the home. I'm glad you were able to spend an "up" day with your mum.
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah - thanks for commenting - today went awry. We visited neighbours who dosed us with homemade raspberry cassis and made us sit still as they fed us wonderful food & poured drink down our throats - the midges are swarming, so indoors getting slightly squiffy in great company was probably for the best!
ReplyDeleteBut the to do list lengthens - as they do....
Hi Caroline,
ReplyDeleteKnow what you mean as Mom also has the disease. Has had it for ten years. All the residents that were in the home when she got there are now dead. So much life she could have had. She was such a vibrant, fun filled lady but now is such a pale shadow. Know the feelings of grief, guilt and fear well.
Hi Brian,
ReplyDeleteIt is a damnable disease. They are gone, but still there - it is like a long grieve.
In some ways I am glad I live a good distance away - how selfish is that?
I must do a 'Living Will' - one of those things I keep meaning to do.....
Sorry you have had this in your Mother and for so long. Stem cell research has got to be a good thing if they can eventually do something about such dreadful diseases.
Great blog, Caroline. As others have said, you write so well.
ReplyDeleteAlzheimer's disease must be tough. I lost my mother suddenly, without warning and that was so hard. I cannot imagine how it is for you, a lingering farewell.
Keep doing what you're doing!
Thanks Bill.
ReplyDeleteMy Father dropped dead - literally & that was such a shock for everyone, but I think I would rather die like that - on my feet than the slow erosion of personality, comprehension. But we don't have that choice - I suppose, unless we take matters into our own hands....
But there again, if we decide after a diagnosis of some dementia type of disease to scoff a load of tablets, would we remember to take them, where we'd stashed them?