Give Them The Money. Part One.

Over Christmas and the New year, the lady that helps us out with Mum, was off as she had planned, so it was up to us kids to look after our Mum who has dementia, twenty-four seven, for about two weeks.

As we have six cats and two dogs, our home isn’t suitable for Mum, so I suggested to one of my brothers, “How about, I stay at your home, Wednesday to Bank Holiday Monday, with Mum and you can stay with your girlfriend, making it a win win, situation.”

William thought it was a, “Brilliant idea.”

I decided to be prepared, so I packed things that I would need for my six days there, on the day I would buy food for Mum and myself. I brought things that I could do, when Mum was having her daily nap, and things that I would do after Mum had gone to bed around 7.30pm. My brother doesn’t have a telly, so I would have to make sure I connected my laptop to his Wi-Fi. As the days approached, I was satisfied that, I had more than enough activities that I would be taking with me to my brother’s house, so I wouldn’t feel that I have wasting any time, in the in-between times when I am not supporting Mum, showers, meals and activities.

On the Wednesday, I made sure, that my own house was in order, I’d tidied up, and had gone shopping for my family, myself and for Mum and I’d told William that morning, “I will be at yours 5pm.” That way, I would be able to chill and not rush.

I also had stories that I wanted to write, and I wanted to delete, at least one thousand pictures from my mobile phone, that would bring the number down to twelve thousand.

My brother’s house is perfect, its like a beautiful show room house. Every single thing is in its place, it is perfect from top to bottom, inside and out, it is always a pleasure to be there. I have my £5 Tesco slippers that I keep in the back seat of my car, that I use for when I visit. I was looking forward to it, it would be like an adventure, and more importantly real quality time with Mum and myself. I would probably get more sleep or a lot less sleep, as I’ve found out in the past last year when I slept there for three nights, with Mum.

At nearer ninety, Mum is not keen on shower times, but my plan was to support her with two in that time. I’d bought comfort foods that we both like, not like the wholesome foods my brother prepares for him and Mum, all his food is freshly prepared and all, colourful and delicious. My brother does not eat any processed foods at all. Most of what I eat is processed.

I arrived at Williams home and unpacked all my various bags and food, making sure I had my pink slippers on. I thought he would leave almost straight away, or soon after I had arrived, but he is always busy so he was still doing his things, including watering his beautiful plants.

Mum was pleased to see me, as was I her. She hadn’t eaten yet, so some of the reduced food that I’d just bought, I heated on the lovey cooker, as William has no microwave.

William left about ninety minutes later, I unpacked, my items. I was happy and peaceful, Mum too. I had prewarned Mum, “Tomorrow I will help you with your shower, before breakfast.”

One of the things I wanted to do with Mum, and had done it whenever I was with her last year was to do, Spot the Difference, on my laptop. It was an unusual one, where you did the ten differences and it timed you. Then when you did it, you could do it all over again. Now Mum with her dementia, it was perfect, for at first when she looked at it, she couldn’t see any difference, but I’m sat next to her, so we are looking at the same thing. I’d sometimes give her clues, “Look at the top right,” But even that wasn’t that simple, as it would still take Mum five minutes to find it there. Or I’d say, “On the bottom left, there is a different colour,” It didn’t matter about the time, it wasn’t a race, it was quality time, love and affection, slowing myself right down, nothing else mattered, but the hear and now with Mum. Making the most of Mum’s abilities. Usually, Mum was able to do it in fifteen minutes or less. I would show her the final time, and then I would say, “You have just done it, now let’s do it again, and see if you can beat your own time, ok?” It would make no difference to Mum that she had just done it, it would take her just as long again, for she didn’t remember doing it, the first time.

Mum eats two meals a day now, she enjoys a cooked breakfast, and it didn’t matter how large I made it, she would eat it, all. If I would have given her the same amount of food for her dinner, she would not eat any of it, as she would say, “I don’t like to eat late, before I got to bed.” So, because I know its her main meal of the day, I go to town on it, so that some mornings I will give Mum three scrambled eggs, with a whole tin of spaghetti, with one tomato sliced and Hovis brown bread and butter not margarine, with a cup of very weak tea, sweetened with a teaspoon of honey. It gives me great satisfaction when I see that she has eaten everything, as this isn’t always the case with any meal that follows, for lunch and tea usually is either untouched or most not eaten. After breakfast she always has a nap. Mum has worked all her life, and she worked nights for decades, as an intensive care nurse.

I didn’t give Mum the shower when I had planned as Mum was coughing in the night and bringing up phlegm, both in the day and the night. Although William has showed me which radiators to put on to the make the bedroom and bathroom snug and warm. William had popped home the following day and I had told him, “I didn’t get to shower Mum, because of her coughing,” William said, “That shouldn’t make any difference,” I replied, “OK, tomorrow I will shower Mum.”

At first it was a very big deal for me and Mum, her shower time, I didn’t want to shower Mum when it was first suggested to me and my brothers, two of them are nurses. It just didn’t seem right. But one day, William asked me, “Will you come over and shower Mum?” I drove the eight miles to his home and did. Mum was moaning, I was nervous and William said, to Mum, “Do not moan, Maxine is here to help you.” As time went on, it became easier for Mum and myself. Mum always moans before a shower, and now I always say the same thing, “If I didn’t love you as my Mum, then I wouldn’t care, I would just leave you un-showered, but it’s because I love you, why I shower you.” And after I have showered Mum, and I’m drying her back I say, “Now don’t you feel better for it?” And Mum always replies, “Yes.” The following day, after breakfast I helped Mum have a nice shower.

William doesn’t have a telly, so I typed in BBC news, but was unable to get it for Mum, because I had to sign in to BBC iplayer and I didn’t know how to do that, so I simply typed in Sky news, live and Mum watched that news instead. It was on there I saw about the electric cars all queues to plug in their cars and I wrote about it.

Some nights it was far too bright in the bedroom and it was difficult to sleep, Mum needed the light so that she was able to see to go to the loo in the night. One morning I got up 05.30am I was alert and decided I could get things done that I couldn’t do when I was at home, for at home the cats took up a lot of my time in the mornings, so it was nice to be able to have Me Time, without the cats and while Mum was still asleep. I’d bought oranges so that I could have my cod liver oil with it, then carried on my usual routine. That was lovely and peaceful and serene. One of the mornings, I had got up early, but I had wasted the time, and went out of sync with Mum, so Mum had breakfast, and I didn’t but when I did have breakfast much later, Mum should have been having lunch, but I didn’t have lunch with Mum because I wasn’t hungry, I was giving myself more work, it was difficult then with no microwave, to quickly heat things up. The food I’d bought was meant to be eaten together not at different times, for you weren’t supposed to reheat it. I only made that mistake once. On another morning, Mum didn’t want to get up at 9am. But I like Mum to be having breakfast around then, but Mum said, “I don’t want to get up yet, I am an old lady, do I have to get up now?” looking at my lovely Mum in the bed, I thought, she has worked hard all of her life, why can’t she have a lie-in today? So, I let Mum chill in bed for another thirty minutes. When I went back upstairs, she was sitting on the side of the bed.

The following day, I made sure we were in sync for breakfast, for later I would be going to the chippy, for our tea! When it was time, I asked Mum, “What do you want from the chippy?” She said, Mini fish and chips,” I said, I am having the same,” I asked, “Do you want, curry sauce with it or gravy?” Mum replied, which surprised me, “Curry sauce,” I like both, but I prefer gravy. I left Mum watching Sky news and I told her, “I won’t be long, do not get up from the sofa.” Mum replied, “I won’t.” Well it is such a popular chippy that there was a queue, and they did our fish fresh. I was gone forty minutes, I was getting nervous, hoping that Mum had remembered that I was at the chippy, and that I had asked her not to get up from the sofa. I raced back to home, and was relived that Mum was still where I had left her. After a quick tinkle, we sat at the table and ate our yummy dinner. Mum didn’t eat all of hers, but she had enough, and I hoped she enjoyed it, as much as I enjoyed mine.

By the time Mum was tucked up in bed, the projects that I had planned to do, when Mum was in bed, I didn’t feel like doing, I didn’t feel alert enough, so I was glad I had my laptop so that I could write. I did succumb to sleep, but when I woke up, I just carried on, from where I left off. I was glad that I was surviving the week.

I had tried to do my own basic exercise for Mum to do as she sat on the sofa, but it was lacking something, it was lacking everything in fact, for I am not a personal training, I don’t do exercise. I decided the next day, that I would type in exercise for the over eighty’s in the chair. That was what I did the following day, I put the laptop on the pine dining table and sat Mum on the pine chair. Alert, Mum followed, without my help, the various very different, people who were doing the exercise for people Mum’s age. After thirty minutes, I stopped the video, that was enough for the day.