The last visit to my mother was so dreadful it has taken me several days to process it sufficiently to be able to write about it. In the past, dreadful visits have frequently been an indicator of an underlying infection which has subsequently evidenced itself, so that later you tell yourself that was why she was so rude or critical or aggressive; the knowledge makes the insult easier to bear. Now, however, as the disease takes firmer hold and the brain is destroyed, bad days are just bad days for no reason other than the condition itself. They are very random and her mood can turn on a sixpence. She can be nice as ninepence when I ring in the morning and accusatory, shrill and hysterical when she rings me later the same day. The only certainty is that she will be nasty when tired. If I get a string of phone calls starting about seven in the evening I know what sort of evening to expect. The only action I can take is to wait until they unplug her phone, wait until I’ve calmed down before I go to bed and then have a bit of a lie in in the morning followed by a work out.
Last visit when we arrived she had locked her door and wouldn’t let us in. She shouted through the locked door that she was busy reading the newspaper and we’d have to go away. I kept knocking patiently and explaining that it was me and that I’d come to see her and she kept replying that she was very busy sitting down.
Eventually the OH had the bright idea of ringing her on his mobile. I spoke: Hello it’s me.
Oh hang on Jane, there’s someone at the door.
Could you answer it?
I don’t know who it is.
It’s me.
Is it? But you’re on the phone.
Yes I’m also standing outside the door.
Oh wait a minute, I think there’s someone at the door.
Yes it’s me.
Is it? Well you’ll have to wait. There’s someone at the door. I wasn’t going to answer it but I might was well because I’ve had to cross the floor because the phone was ringing.
Was it? Well could you open the door and we’ll come in for a visit.
Will you? (Opens the door) Oh that was quick you were just on the phone.
Was I? Let me put the phone down for you.
Who was it?
Oh it’s all right, they’ve rung off, anyway I’m here, as usual, for a visit.
It sounds funny now, I wish it had at the time.
I find often these days that washing her hair and setting it for her is helpful. There is a hairdressing salon in the building but she has taken against the hairdresser and her hairdressing friend who used to visit the house cannot do it anymore. In fact the hairdressing helps because it is soothing and physical and while I am putting the curlers in all wrong and drying it too hot or too whooshy or too cold we can fall into easy hairdresser talk (avoiding the bit where I ask if she’s been on her holidays yet, because as soon as I do she’s back on a cruise ship again). All her adult life she has been to the hairdresser once a week; as with all dementia patients any well established routine is soothing. In deference to her physical frailty we have a break between the drying and the removal of the curlers. Often after the brushing out the afternoon tea trolley makes an appearance which is our signal to take tea and subsequently, our leave.
The visit takes no more than three hours which will exhaust her. In the space of three hours I can turn her mood from anything to calmer and sometimes even happy but it is exhausting work. I feel like a tiny tug boat trying to turn an ocean liner.
It is not natural to swallow your own feelings and reply calmly and kindly regardless of the provocation. Being relentlessly cheerful while people are either lying to you or screaming at you does not come easily either. I am getting a lot of practice. At the weekend the OH was out all Saturday afternoon and then out at a party until half past one on Sunday morning and wasted all Sunday afternoon. My mother did a couple of aggressive phone calls on Saturday and a very confused two on Sunday. It was her sister’s one hundred and second birthday. My mother wanted to ring her but didn’t have the number and had to wait while I looked up the number on the Internet, then had to ring on her own, but, as her sister didn’t have a direct line, had to ask the care home office for the phone to be taken to her sister. All of which I had to school her in over the phone. When she rang back it was hard to find out if she was aggressive because she had done it and was tired, or aggressive because se hadn’t managed it and was annoyed. And I’d just finished with all of that when the OH staggered downstairs sneezing and looking fifty shades of grey round the gills but not in a good way.
But by nine at night she’d been unplugged, he’d taken himself off the bed and I breathed out.
And then I cheered myself up with a bit of online shopping.
If you’re expecting a present from me it’ll be whatever annoyed people buy late at night. Flame throwers for garden weeds or brushes with metal bristles for a lot of scrubbing or maybe just a nice simple gallon bottle of caustic drain cleaner.
Next difficult day or two I’ll be online sourcing big sheets of sandpaper for wrapping and barbed wire for the bows.
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Heigh ho heigh ho……………is there no let up at all?