Good or bad
By Mike on Tuesday 4 March 2008, 02:10 - Journal - Permalink
This interim period, during which mum is in the retirement village and dad is
still at home has brought both good and bad.
As far as mum is concerned, the results of the move appear to have been near-perfect. She seems content in her new environment, healthier, more cheerful and, we all agree in this, more articulate. It could be the improved nutrition or the company of others, but she is once again putting a few words together appropriately at times. It might have been the continuous sheer impossibility of having a calm conversation with dad that had undermined what little verbal confidence she retained. It just might be that being clean and well nourished is more important and more helpful than drugs. I remember the almost negligible improvement Aricept delivered. Moving to the home has brought a much more marked improvement.
I am more than ever convinced, even vindicated, on this issue. If only the social services were less concerned with the broad spectrum of issues they raised like stress, and environment and socialisation, and had been more geared to washing, cleaning and feeding.
We now have visiting careworkers providing company for dad, but all it does, I suppose, is take him offline for a while and away from the phone. And Rachel and I were today talking about how it often seems to take more of our time organising and coordinating these visits than it would to simply visit in person, and do the job ourselves. Moreover, in dad's case, it has appeared to have no effect in reducing his anxiety and loneliness, or his need for company.
I've had enough this last week. The phone calls mounted to ridiculous levels so that I had to keep my phone switched off all the time, missing calls from others as well as all dad's. Furthermore, I could not keep up with his messages, filling my mailbox and stopping other people from leaving their own. And when I did call dad back, I simply received a haranguing based around the accusation that I had no idea how bad things were over there, that I seemed to be deliberately ignoring him, and so on. I had intended to go over on Sunday, but simply couldn't be bothered.
While dad almost pleads for company, he is ungrateful and irritable most of the time I am with him. While he is preoccupied with visiting mum, he has nothing to say to her when he arrives and seems to reawaken her exasperations when he is there. Half an hour after returning home he is asking to be taken to visit her again.
On Friday and Monday I called the manager of the retirement village, Harriet, to make plans for admitting dad. On neither occasion was I able to speak to her, and had to leave a message instead. We really need to have dad living at home until we have the concessionary admission of mum in hand. We cannot even send off our application for mum until we have paid the money for the funerals and signed the builder's contract. We do not yet have the paperwork for either of these prerequisites. All of this means delay. Delay may mean that dad's room is given to someone else, I do not know. Perhaps we can admit him on a temporary respite basis, I do not know. It is frustrating.
As far as mum is concerned, the results of the move appear to have been near-perfect. She seems content in her new environment, healthier, more cheerful and, we all agree in this, more articulate. It could be the improved nutrition or the company of others, but she is once again putting a few words together appropriately at times. It might have been the continuous sheer impossibility of having a calm conversation with dad that had undermined what little verbal confidence she retained. It just might be that being clean and well nourished is more important and more helpful than drugs. I remember the almost negligible improvement Aricept delivered. Moving to the home has brought a much more marked improvement.
I am more than ever convinced, even vindicated, on this issue. If only the social services were less concerned with the broad spectrum of issues they raised like stress, and environment and socialisation, and had been more geared to washing, cleaning and feeding.
We now have visiting careworkers providing company for dad, but all it does, I suppose, is take him offline for a while and away from the phone. And Rachel and I were today talking about how it often seems to take more of our time organising and coordinating these visits than it would to simply visit in person, and do the job ourselves. Moreover, in dad's case, it has appeared to have no effect in reducing his anxiety and loneliness, or his need for company.
I've had enough this last week. The phone calls mounted to ridiculous levels so that I had to keep my phone switched off all the time, missing calls from others as well as all dad's. Furthermore, I could not keep up with his messages, filling my mailbox and stopping other people from leaving their own. And when I did call dad back, I simply received a haranguing based around the accusation that I had no idea how bad things were over there, that I seemed to be deliberately ignoring him, and so on. I had intended to go over on Sunday, but simply couldn't be bothered.
While dad almost pleads for company, he is ungrateful and irritable most of the time I am with him. While he is preoccupied with visiting mum, he has nothing to say to her when he arrives and seems to reawaken her exasperations when he is there. Half an hour after returning home he is asking to be taken to visit her again.
On Friday and Monday I called the manager of the retirement village, Harriet, to make plans for admitting dad. On neither occasion was I able to speak to her, and had to leave a message instead. We really need to have dad living at home until we have the concessionary admission of mum in hand. We cannot even send off our application for mum until we have paid the money for the funerals and signed the builder's contract. We do not yet have the paperwork for either of these prerequisites. All of this means delay. Delay may mean that dad's room is given to someone else, I do not know. Perhaps we can admit him on a temporary respite basis, I do not know. It is frustrating.