16 Nursing Home Day

N.H.Day

Monday dawned. I informed Mum that to day I was moving her into residential accommodation for me to have abit of a rest. "I'm not going anywhere " she said  Oh dear this was not going to be easy. Eventually she backed down  and got in the car.

Throughout the short ten minute journey she kept up a diatribe that I was despicable and this is obviously what I had been wanting for a long time which of course was not true. We would much have preferred her to die at home but everyone was telling me  that it was time for a nursing home. Falls, incontinence etc.Having looked after her for two and a half years  we did not feel she was going to last much longer.

We got to Braemar http://www.braemar.org.au/ and then of course she refused to get out of the car. I went in to tell Sharon that we were here  but she did not want to come in. "Will my charms help?" she said "Yes They Might" so she came out to the car and said"Hello"to Mum and that they were expecting her etc. But still Olwen refused to budge. Stalemate for about half an hour. Sharon went back to her work.  Eventually Mum made an effort  to get out of the car. with the enticement that they had lunch on. She  still had a good appetite and enjoyed her food I said I would help her with her bag. "Make sure you don't take any money out of it" I let that one pass! and we got inside. She immediately said"  "You're putting me in a home"  as unfortunately you pass notices essential to the work place " remember to wash your hands" and workplace advocacy etc. Mum was 101 and a half but not dumb but she could be rude. "Look  at her" she said as we passed an old lady in a wheel chair. I hope that poor lady was deaf. We got to her room, her lunch came  and after lunch a lovely carer came to take her to the toilet and she cooperated. I stayed all afternoon until tea time and then left. It was a day I was glad was over!

Next day  we took in her chair and some flowers to brighten up her room. She was sitting in the lounge in a wheelchair, something she would not have accepted a short time ago. Indeed much as she loved shops she would never consent to a wheel chair hire  around the shopping centre and of course she still called them bath chairs and not many people would remember them being called that! Yes it is confronting seeing your mother now drinking from a plastic beaker rather than her beloved china, being given a bib akin to a babies at meal time instead of a serviette yet she was accepting it  with no complaints. I really think that when the time comes for you to go in a nursing home you do not notice your surroundings  and it is not the horror you imagine it to be when you are young, active and more switched on.

On subsequent visits I mostly found her asleep  most of the time, she enjoyed what I had brought for her,  tangerines, a drink, dry ginger or cranberry and of course sweets but into week two  she has only asked about going home once. Of course they can't  stop her having falls either and she got nasty bruises on her face with the first and they are trying to get her sleeping at night and then she may be more alert during the day. But Yes it was time.

15. Falls and Dementia

August dawned still quite cold. A couple of bad nights and first fall  on the 9th early morning but Bob on hand to help get her up. We now have someone every morning to get her up showered and do her breakfast. Even though they are often here at seven sometimes she has beaten them to it and managed to get herself dressed so of course is then uncooperative,doesn't want a shower but now she is incontinent needs one.

Next occurrence, again an early morning one was when she tried to go to the toilet without her frame which I think sometimes she can not see. Three days later one evening she was on the floor, Bob was out. I managed to get her into a kneeling position with her hands on the chair arms and with abit of help she managed to pull herself up.

While this was all happening her dementia was also getting worse, imaginary conversations with people that weren't there but of them all, ladies ,men the most constant were three little boys. One day I got home from bridge to find her quite distressed that one of them was ill and needed to be taken to the doctor. She would not settle all afternoon culminating in her walking a long way round sitting on a chair that wasn't there and sustaining quite a nasty bump on her head. In all she had seven falls in August. It was becoming clear that we were on a downward spiral.

Everybody was telling me it was time for a nursing home so I rang up to put her name down thinking I would be lucky to get a place before Christmas to be told to come in the next day for an interview to be told there was a bed available right away. Have to say it was providential. The nursing home in question was Braemar  the one I had been on the committee of for 25 years not as flash furnishing wise as Berrington and abit dated with too many plastic flowers around,  but we did know the care was good and Bob felt far more confident of her going in there than  the place she had been to for respite where it was very hard to find staff available. I did not have to pull any strings. So we had to start introducing the topic that she was going in residential care for me to have a rest but of course it was extremely difficult  for her one to hear what you were saying and two to understand it.