Well, mum's GP, Dr Patella, called me back on Monday and we discussed mum. Dr Patella has been left out of the loop recently, in regard to mum's aggression, so she was surprised to hear about dad's broken rib and broken glasses. I have a feeling that this may have started alarm bells ringing for her, because when we came to discussing exactly what to prescribe for mum, and how much, she was strongly in favour of 0.5 mg of Risperidone, rather than 0.25 mg, and staying with Risperidone instead of going for the alternatives. I argued for a lower dosage, to which she said that we can get the 0.5 mg tablets now, and if mum becomes too zombiefied we can break them in half and even reduced the frequency of administration to once every two days. So, she seems open to being flexible, I hope the nursing service will be able to go with the changes, if they happen.

Which brings up another possibility. If the frequency is not to be daily, then perhaps between us Greg, Rachel and I can make sure mum gets three or four tablets or parts thereof a week. Then we could administer them in the evenings and avoid the problem of mum dropping off during lunch.

The following day I found the prescription Dr Patella had subsequently mailed to me in my P O Box. Well done, doctor and Australia Post. And yesterday I went over to mum and dad's and got the prescription filled. So now all we need is for the authorisation to work its way through to the nurse and we can start the doping once again.

I ought to be embarking on this second stage with fingers crossed, because if we can quieten mum's behaviour, we might just be able to get her to wash occasionally, and wear some other clothes - in place of the increasingly ragged and grimy outfit she insists upon every morning. And we might just be able to provide a better quality of life for dad. However, I must be growing cynical, because I have no real hopes of this. If it works and we can get some benefits from it, then fine. If not, well maybe we can try some other concoction from the psychopharmacological cabinet. And so on, and so on, until we run out of either options or motivation or problem.

And the rest is just routine.

I bought one of every flavour cat food I could find - 69 cans in all. That should keep the cats fed for a couple of weeks. I took mum and dad out for afternoon tea. I went through the mail and attempted to sort out why dad's computer isn't sending out its IP address properly - I didn't solve this problem, but then we all seem to have grown out of the habit of checking Grannie-cam these days.