The end of the last week was overshadowed with worry in the wake of mum having a third fall in the nursing home. Two missed calls in the early morning on Thursday sent me into a panic but when I called back the situation wasn't as bad as feared - yes, she had had a fall but wasn't badly hurt besides having another bruise on her face.
Later that day, the home called again to advise the GP had visited and, again, had recommended that mum be taken to A&E for an x-ray to check it out. While I wholeheartedly support the idea, it wasn't something I could face for the third time, but thankfully my sister was available and agreed to take mum to the hospital this time around. That evening I collected them from the entrance to A&E when the medical staff had checked her over and were happy that there wasn't amiss, and I dropped them back at the home as the hospital transportation would have taken far too long. It was already past 9pm in the evening and mum was tired besides being hugely distressed at being at that dreadful but essential place again.
My visit today was unlike any other I'd had so far. Mum was quite fine and settled when I eventually sat her down. On my arrival, she was waking around in the first dayroom, full of voice saying goodness knows what to the other residents and a few of their visitors there, but I took her down to the second dayroom where only another lady was sat quietly on her own, while the staff were in and out of both rooms busying themselves with their normal tasks.
This lady asked me how my mum was today and said to me that she'd kept an eye on her, and that she'd been fine, and asked mum herself if she was ok. Mum responded pretty positively actually "Yes dear, I'm OK, thank you very much, you're very kind". This is the sort of thing she'll say when she's settled and in a decent mood. This lady then told me she needed to pop to the loo and off she trot, looking around here and there in the corridor. In the meantime mum and I did what we do - we can't have a conversation but I can at least feed her some fruit and encourage her to drink some water and juice, and when the tea and biscuits came round I helped with that again.
Her face is still a mess. The bruising from the second fall is only now coming down but now the left side of her face is bruised and she has a cut lip. My sister and I both already voiced our concerns with the management about how and why this could be happening in the first place, but that's another story.
This other lady came back in settled down and said how good it was to see her having the apple and banana with me and how important it was to drink the water. Then she started counting the chairs in the room and said something I couldn't quite grasp about we being OK with it. Over the remainder of the visit she excused herself several times, saying she needed to spend a penny and that she'd be back in just a jiffy, only to return a few second later saying it was all a bit too busy.
It was only then that I realised she herself was another resident. It was only later that I had found out, from a visitor whose husband was a resident that I knew my name but not by much else otherwise, that this lady's husband had recently passed away and she had been moved there in a bit of an emergency, and quite a bit of confusion about the whole situation... my heart sank, realising that she herself didn't understand where she might be or the fact that her husband wasn't around anymore.
Now, this other lady - the wife to the chap I had known by name and who I think often wandered around the place with not a lot of clothes on at times and told me about this lady's situation - had told me something I felt strangely reassuring. My mum has lost a huge amount of weight since going into care. We all see this and worry about it. She does eat, but doesn't eat very much and needs a lot of encouragement. It's why whenever my sister or I visit we take sandwiches or fruits and plenty of drinks to keep her topped up. This lady explained to me that her husband had been a big, stocky, strong man before the dementia set in, and very aggressively too, and while he eats every scrap of food given to him, he's lost a considerable amount of weight. I heard her speaking to the staff while they attempted to weigh him again to find out what his weight was this week.
This rings true of another story in the care home: I had mentioned before how there is a lady that is there everyday from 10 in the morning until 8 in the evening by the side of her husband. This chap too, as his son told me the one time I had met him on a Saturday morning visit there, was also strong and stocky but is now a shell of the man he was - whittled away, bony and unresponsive to anyone. It's very sad whenever I see him, and I was told by his wife that the doctor hadn't given him much time left... it's truly a heart-wrenching thing to be told by someone. I can't imagine what this lady and her family must be feeling or going through.
So, it's no wonder that mum too is wasting away, but it was reassuring in a way - albeit a bittersweet way - that she wasn't the only one being affected and that we aren't the only ones facing the same concerns about our loved one's health.
So anyway, back to sitting with mum and this other new resident who I at first thought was another visitor. The next resident to join us was none other than another white haired old lady who is notorious for being the loudest there. She is still very mobile and very vocal but a lovely sweet lady when she's not distressed. My wife later commented that she looked like a ghost - so thin and frail and pale. Well, it was this ghost that, in her own lucid moment today, told me how great I was, such a lovely young man, that she wished me all the very best, that I was 100% and a dear, dear lovely person. In the next moment she was crying out for her mum and sobbing like a child.
And funnily enough, it was that other guy I knew by name and face and whose wife I had met today, that told me once that this frail, pale lady was 'crackers' while she was in one of her loud moments.
There are so many stories and so many characters in that place. Seriously, you couldn't make some of it up, and if you didn't laugh you'd only cry.
