The weekend was not enhanced by another panic of the type that seems to be so characteristic of the stage of dementia that my mother has reached. As her dementia is vascular, primarily, the state of her blood vessels, including aortic stenosis, which means severe narrowing of the main artery that supplies the heart, is fairly dreadful. Each blood vessel, including the tiny ones, is clogged almost solid with the same fat that lines every frying pan in the cupboard, every weekly steak, with the tasty fat not cut off, and the half pound of butter consumed every week since rationing finished after the war. My mother, who never moved much to begin with, now only walks to the toilet, through into the dining room for meals and back to her chair. Climbing the stairs, a feat akin to the ascent of the north face of the Eiger, is a once a day event. I have offered to turn a downstairs room into a bedroom, but this is unthinkable, I am informed.
You would imagine, from reading this, that my mother is some type of woman mountain. Far from it, she has, without any exercise at all, having had a weekly cleaner ever since she married, and a husband who would put the car on the drive for her and do any type of heavy lifting with cries of: Don’t strain yourself dear! (beyond unlikely), always been slim and eaten like a horse. It is now, however, apparent that she is one of those thin on the outside, fat on the inside people you read about, who really do exist. It’s a very dangerous way to be, as the weekend proved.
On Saturday morning the phone rang, I shivered and answered it. The manageress was on the line, speaking in a calm, quiet and measured tone, which she hastened to say was because she was sitting at the bedside of another client. My mother was ill, wouldn’t get up and was refusing oxygen, did they have my permission to call the doctor? I gave it and reminded the manageress of the Do Not Resuscitate notice and asked if it had been located at the house, there having been difficulty finding it last time the doctor was summoned. The DNR notice was issued over a year ago at the request of my mother because she would prefer to die at home, does not wish to be dragged back to life and does appallingly badly when taken to hospital. The document was drawn up in consultation with numerous doctors making sure this was what my mother really wanted and occasioned many very distressing chats between me and my mother, who having expressed a desire for the document could then not remember having done so. It took many months to establish to her satisfaction that this document did exist and would be acted on. Now if she is very ill, I remind her of the existence of the document, which reassures her. I find the whole business as stressful as you would expect and was not pleased when the carers announced the copy kept at the house had gone AWOL. The manageress has assured me it is there. I carry a copy with me at all times and the original document is kept at Carer’s HQ.
So a doctor was called for but was apparently, as it was the weekend, a commodity in short supply, so an ambulance was summoned instead to give a primary, on-the-ground assessment of the situation. Throughout the ensuing drama, which took all day, I was kept informed on an almost hourly basis by carers at the house. The ambulance team, finding nothing very untoward other than an arrhythmic heartbeat, put my mother on the list for a visit by a rare weekend doctor when one became available. He did eventually turn up in the evening and at my suggestion, made via the carer, made sure my mother’s blood pressure was taken, because she likes having her blood pressure taken and has often expressed scorn for doctors who do not take her blood pressure, as if they could be lumped in with incompetent plumbers who don’t turn the water off first.
While the drama was unfolding I was in close contact with the S&H in case he had to get there to look after his cats, and in negotiation with the OH who was going round to a friend’s house to ‘watch the rugby’ that he still, unusually, be able to drive afterwards, in case. And, of course, emergency suitcase packing and conversations to reassure the carer on the ground that even if my mother died immediately I would not blame the carer, who was advising me not to go. It didn’t help that my mother had been threatening me all week, insisting that she was dying and I had to go. On several occasions she screamed down the phone that she was dying, would have to do it alone with strangers and it would all be my fault and that I would have to live with my conscience knowing I had abandoned my own mother as she was dying.
Bedtime came, I slept fitfully, expecting a phone call at any time.
Sunday morning I rang, the phone was passed to my mother………….
Bright as a button, cheerful, well, joys of spring (well, joys of a cold November day, let’s not get carried away). How was she? Fine, why? Did she remember being ill? Yesterday? No, though strangely she had been wide awake at three in the morning and downstairs having a cup of tea and biscuits with the carer thereafter.
The second in command opined afterwards that my mother had likely had a blood clot passing through her heart, with some difficulty. I consider this to be a good assessment of the situation. I have arranged for her regular doctor, to pay her a visit during our usual weekly day there this week, though my mother, as always, having no memory of being so ill, is fine, or as close to fine as she gets, though she says she is tired but isn’t sure why.
If you thought a blood clot had had difficulty getting through your heart because the blood vessels approaching the heart were clogged up with butter, how well would you be right now? Would you be tucking into your second slice of well buttered toasted brioche?
It will take me until Wednesday to be well enough to go. I feel as if I’ve been run over by a truck. I spent a good three hours out in the garden yesterday, digging, sweeping and mowing my troubles away.
The panic is over but the memory lingers on for some of us, until next time.
Though I do have a lovely tidy garden, so it’s not all bad.
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JaneLaverick.com – cloggy.