I visit my mother in a care home a few times a week. She has Alzheimer’s disease so these visits aren’t easy. I used to take her out but over the last few months this has not been possible. We have now reached the stage where my mother hardly recognises me and the logistics involved have become unsustainable. Even a drive in the car causes upset and she has stopped enjoying the Elvis Presley CD which she used to love!
There is little conversation between my mother and I as she doesn’t remember any family or friends. Showing her photographs produces a minimal reaction but I persevere just in case she does recognise a family member! So I have stopped spending time alone with her in her room and socialise with the other residents. I sit with my mother and include her in our conversations. She used to become jealous if I spoke to the anyone else but now takes little notice.
I have, therefore, made some new friends! A few of the residents can still have meaningful conversations and I find some of them fascinating. Take Gerald, for instance. He was a fighter pilot and flew Lancaster bombers during the war. He is very well spoken, a shocking flirt, to the embarrassment of his granddaughter, but so interesting. As I explained to the young girl, cringing when her Grandad asked me if I was the cabaret act and he’d soon put a smile on my face, not to be offended. Dementia is an awful disease and I am fully aware of how it changes personalities! I just laugh it off!
Gerald told me that his wife has been dead for two and a half years. He loved her dearly and still misses her desperately. Apparently she was paralysed and didn’t recognise him but he made daily visits to her in a care home a few miles away. He has put his name down to move there as soon as a room becomes available. It would make him feel closer to her. In the same conversation he told me that he always felt lucky to have survived the war. With tears in his eyes he said that he still has so many vivid memories etched with so much sadness. Pilots were fodder for the Germans. So many brave young men died yet more went out day after day to face the Luftwaffe! He knows he has dementia and is quite pragmatic about it! Makes me feel ungrateful and annoyed that I still sweat the small stuff!
Nicola is only seventy three. She is still an attractive woman and I find her very amusing! She had a boyfriend who gradually stopped visiting. Like Gerald she is very pragmatic. ‘You just can’t trust men’ she’d tell me when another week had passed and the boyfriend hadn’t called. ‘It’s a case of out of sight out of mind’ she’d shrug her shoulders. ‘Would you like a drink or something to eat’ she always asks? If Nicola is at the door when a relative or friend comes to visit she is the perfect hostess!
But I can report that, within the last few days, Nicola has found a new man. He is Robert, my mother’s neighbour. Robert became a resident about six months ago. In all that time I have never seen him leave his room. The furthest he has ventured was to the door and he was forever pacing up and down, holding his stomach and emitting occasional loud groans. His food was always left on the tray and he has lost a lot of weight.
Last Monday when I went into the main sitting room with my Mother to listen to some music, I was very surprised to see Robert and Nicola cuddled up together on a sofa holding hands. They were both singing along to Tom Jones, happy and relaxed, not a care in the world! Robert looked at least ten years younger! There was no sign of pain or anxiety! I hope his family embrace this relationship and understand the good it is doing and not try to inflict ‘normal’ behaviour when dealing with dementia!
So another visit has come and gone. I helped my mother with her lunch today. She was taken upstairs to have her hair done but flatly refused! She came down a bit later so they served her a meal on her own. My mother played around with her food, moving the sausage from one side of the plate to the other. She ignored the vegetables but ate some of the potato and gravy. I had to chuckle. If we had done this when we were at home my mother would have been really annoyed. We would have been threatened with missing out on the dessert! After some coaxing and even cutting up her sausage I gave up and watched her enjoy a tapioca pudding!
Missing out on a meal won’t be detrimental to her general health and well-being! I wasn’t going to try and force her to eat. Life is just too short …..đź‘
Jenny Burrell 