I am beginning to dread each visit I make to see mum now. I've said before how anxious I've been every time I park up and enter the home, because of what is waiting to greet me. As much as I want to see my mum and hope she's doing OK, more often than not she is distressed or in some other poor state.
The latest visit we made this weekend was a perfect example of why I worry so much about going. At this new home, after parking the car, we pass windows of residents' rooms before getting to the front entrance, and one of them is her room. As we pass, I notice her in her nighty exiting her room and going into the corridor, with the day room almost opposite. When we get inside, her voice is the first thing I hear. Her nighty is dirty and she is clearly uncomfortable - she is in the corridor with other residents and staff walking around, and she pulls up her nighty, no underwear on, and is asking to be helped. It is a very distressing scene and even after calling after her, she doesn't acknowledge my voice.
It is 10:30 and lots of residents are sat dressed in the day room, else we find them laying in bed in their rooms. We soon learn that mum refused to be cleaned and dressed earlier, so they had to leave her be while they sorted out the other residents. We sit in her room with her but she is groggy and confused. She says she doesn't want to stay there and wants to go home.
Two of the nursing staff come in, unaware that we're in there with her. They've come to attempt cleaning and dressing her. I take our little lad out of the room while my wife stays and tries to help. It's perhaps the single most distressing thing I've heard, if not seen, since this whole thing started.
She is clearly distressed at having people handle her. She screams and wails. It's evident she attempts to punch and kick them. She says she is cold and doesn't like being washed. She keeps telling them she can do it herself, or that she's already washed, but she doesn't know how to. It's a good 10 or 15 minutes of hearing something I've never heard from my mother before - even at the last visit we made to the former care home. It was awful. But what can you do?
When they had just about finished, I was able to make my appearance again, which didn't help things much at all. Even if my wife and I had swapped placed and I stayed in there, I couldn't have done anything. I would probably have been even more angry and upset than I was being outside with my son. No amount of reassuring or attempts to calm her worked. She doesnt' understand if she's told that those ladies are there to help her, and that nobody wants to harm her, and that she'll be better once she's clean and dressed. It's not that she doesn't listen - she simply doesn't understand anymore.
This is something the staff must be challenged with everyday from her, and I imagine more than once a day. It's an awful situation for them and for mum - the poor soul is confused and doesn't understand why she's there and being handled. When she's sat and settled, she appears fine - but talking gibberish a lot of the time and going to and fro beween speaking English and Thai. She does seem to be speaking English more often though.
It doesn't get any easier. That feeling of dread is still with me now, eve after visiting her - I can't shake off the worry and anxiety I feel about how she might be and what she's doing. Perhaps sitting there alone in a chair in the day room, like the other residents, not speaking to each other, just moving around and acknowledging greetings from the staff. It's a sad, sad sight to see.
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