21-09-28 Tuesday I - Dementia Diaries IV

 So, last week we had fun. Mum was very concerned about some theatre tickets which were for a date in 2020, which had obviously passed. The date had been rearranged for 2021, but that date had also passed as well. She kept bringing up these tickets, and so eventually I phoned the box office and clarified that the event had been postponed *again* until July 2022. I did hope that would be the end of it, but no...

Later, she advised that she didn't actually want to go, which was actually a sensible decision in light of Dad's passing, and so I rang for a refund. Absolutely no problem, the nice lady at the box office said, I can refund the purchase to the card you used to pay. This was the Monday, I think. So I told Mum, there was no need for concern, the refund had been made, and it would be on the card. I did think that would be the end of it, but no...

Mum brought up the issue of the tickets again a couple of times, and it took me a while to figure out that as far as she was concerned, the matter wasn't closed because she didn't have the cash in her hand. I explained that the refund had been made to the card, and that she basically had free money on the credit card, in the expectation that the explanation would be sufficient. Unfortunately, it wasn't. 

To cut an even longer story slightly shorter, I ended up, on Tuesday afternoon, walking up to the shops to take £71.50 out of the cash machine so that I could give Mum the hard cash she was expecting. 

The irony was that she hadn't paid for the tickets in the first place; she may have used the credit card to buy them, but Dad had then paid the monthly bill, and so she had never been out of pocket. But she was dreadfully concerned about the refunded cash, and I've not heard it mentioned again at all in the week since I gave her the £71.50. So it seems that was an end to it. Mum doesn't use cards now, she only deals in cash, so if I had thought about it for even a fraction of a second I would have seen that giving her the cash was the best and only solution. Every day is a school day, isn't that what they say? And next time I'll know what the answer is before I'm harrassed about it ten times a day and nearly driven to a breakdown...

TTFN.

21-09-20 - Monday I - Dementia Diaries III

Well, that was an interesting day. I think Mum went on strike, although I'm not quite certain. She was mithering about who was going to wash the sheets, so I took them down and put them in the washing machine, and when the cycle finished I was on the phone. She was bustling about, huffing about gettting the sheets hung out to dry. Well, I wasn't going to hang up on a fairly important call to hang sheets out, but once I had finished I went out to the garden. Mum was then nowhere to be seen...? 

I don't begrudge hanging the washing out; I find it weird though that she would think that takes priority over an ongoing phonecall but she's not prepared to actually hang out the sheets herself. The intricacies of the mind are a wonderful thing, but Mum was hardly predictable before her dementia diagnosis... And then she paid for tea and cake out later this afternoon, so I thought that I was back in her good books. As I say, an interesting day...

TTFN. 

21-09-17 - Friday I - Dementia Diaries II

Wednesday was a good day. We went to Arundel in the afternoon and had a walk around the town. It's more of a village, but with a castle attached, so you can't really call it a village...

Some days Mum can't walk far because she has some toe issues, so Arundel is just about the right size. We walked up to where Sparks Yard used to be, and looked around Nineveh House. Mum is so odd; despite the fact that she could almost buy anything she wanted, she is still a spendthrift. It is just bred in to her, it's part of her inner core. The day Mum starts splurging money on even good quality tat will be the day I know that she's truly not there any more. So of course, she turned her nose up at everything, but there isn't really anything she needs... except fudge.

We wandered down to Roly's Fudge Pantry and bought three packets for £10. My choice was the salted fudge, which was delicious. Mum seemed to want to eat it all before dinner, but I saved most of my pieces for pudding. 

We also stopped and had a cup of tea in Lulamae's cafe, which Mum seemed to enjoy. Going back to her spendthrift ways, she would never normally enjoy a cup of tea out when she can make a perfectly good cup at home... But it was a nice sunny afternoon and spending time wandering around Arundel seemed an appropriate thing to do. All told, I was happy with Wednesday. 

Yesterday (Thursday) was a different story; it was a tiring day. I was trying to understand from Mum what she wanted from Dad's funeral, which was a complicated conversation to have, involving choice. And there was a point where she was trying to tell me that I should somehow change my attitude, but I couldn't quite get what she was driving at. So the levels of concentration were high, and I am not sure that all our interactions were successful. But: when I said I was going to go out for a walk to get some fresh air, late in the afternoon, she offered to come with me, so I knew I hadn't pissed her off. To be honest, I was really looking forward to 40 minutes or so by myself, but I didn't manage to achieve that yesterday. 

TTFN. 

21-09-15 - Wednesday I - Dementia Diaries I

I shouted at Mum yesterday.

I'm not proud of the fact. I'm actually really upset that I did it. But I'd just spoken to the Funeral Director about Dad's funeral, and I was looking for a document to show Dad's last job title before he retired. And Mum started banging on about some Nashville tickets, while I was feeling under pressure to find that letter. 

I know that time is collapsing for Mum, so if something needs doing, it needs doing *now*. So it is the dementia, not Mum, which is causing all of this. And I shouted at her, telling her that finding Dad's letter was the more important issue. I didn't swear, but I was conscious that I was shouting. And I knew at the time that it really wouldn't help anything, but I was feeling really pressured. 

Yesterday was tough; I had to discuss the plans for Dad's funeral with the Funeral Director as well as register his death. And watching Mum slowly disappear isn't particularly easy either...

Watching Mum "forget" how to make a cup of tea, and "forget" people's names, and "forget" events is sad & painful. She is essentially still there, but she can't express herself properly, and she can't follow an argument. She needed help with paying a cheque into the bank on Monday. That would be something she could do without thinking about it even as recently as last year. 

But it's not as though she has forgotten and can be reminded; it's like that piece of info has been permanently destroyed. An example is that she has forgotten the name of the woman who lives over the road, and as often as I tell her the lady's name is "Helen", she can't take that in. Even if she refers to Helen two minutes later, she won't be able to use Helen's name - because that info isn't in her head. Reminding her of the name doesn't help Mum, but it does help me keep a track of what Mum is thinking about and referring to. 

Anyway, I raise my voice very rarely, and the fact that I did so yesterday, to my dementia-ridden Mum, was a bit of a wake-up call. I need to remember to take a breath next time, wait a beat, and then respond. That Calm subscription might come in handy after all... 

TTFN.