Today has been an interesting day. As is customary each Wednesday, our domestic help pays us her weekly visit and we exchange news about our tribulations and, indeed any good news, about the happenings of the last week. We knew from the weather forecast that we were going to have 2-3 days of quite warm and brilliant sunshine but this is only to be a short-lived interlude before the rains of the summer return. So we lost no time in getting ourselves geared up to go down the hill to Waitrose where we collected our newspaper and bought some milk. Then it was time for us to start back up the hill so that we could spend some time in the park where we could consume our elevenses. We were delighted that on the way home, we bumped into our Irish friend who was busy mowing his front lawn and we exchanged news with each other about the various things happening to each of us in our day to day lives. We were also equally delighted to see our Italian friend a little further up the road and we made tentative plans where we could meet in one garden or another whilst the weather was fine to catch up on our news in greater depth. When we got home, it was almost time for our carers to arrive and when they did, one of the female carers attended as she has often threatened to do in her dinosaur (Tyrannosaurus Rex) inflatable outfit. This was huge in size being at least about seven feet in height and complete with a little fan incorporated within it which had the whole task of keeping the outfit inflated and perhaps cool at the same time. Needless to say, I secured a couple of photographs of this which I can show to some of our friends and indicate some of the things with which as ‘service users’ we are subjected to via our carers. But this was not the only happening of this morning because our domestic help also let us listen to a doll about 10″ or so in height of a bear with sunglasses and hat and whose vest is emblazed with the text ‘At my age, We have seen it all, Done it all, I just do not remember it at all’ When a little switch on the left paw is activated we hear the Beetles song ‘When I get old and losing my hair etc. etc.’ which goes on for a couple of verses whilst the doll itself sways in time to the song and even the mouth operates in time with the song. Needless to say, this was a tremendous surprise and delight to us and we have already played with it a couple of times. We have it on loan for about a week so that we can play it several times over and over before we hand it back.
At 1.00pm this afternoon, I was the recipient of a long and detailed phone call from the care coordinator of Worcester Association of Carers. We had seen the lady who acts as the Coordinator about a year ago in the AgeUK club which is run in Finstall, a village adjacent to Bromsgrove and easily accessible from it. This lady is a very ‘can do’ person and has a host of information and contacts and she had organised a follow-up call from what might have been as much as a year ago. So much water has flowed under the bridge so I needed to explain the really significant events of the past year in my caring role for Meg. This has included Meg’s brief stay in hospital, the installation of a stairlift, the installation of a hospital bed in our downstairs living room and the latest developments which mean that Meg cannot walk, let alone stand, and therefore has to be hoisted from bed to wheelchair or armchair with a hoist and sling system. We also need a team of two carers to manipulate this hoist and Meg needs four visits a day – in the morning to get up, in the evening to be put to bed and a late morning and a late afternoon call to check on Meg’s level of comfort. Our phone call went on for an hour a half and I detailed all of the things that were most problematic which were Meg’s inability to sleep once put to bed about every other evening and the fact that she has to be attended to in the wee small hours of the morning. I also pointed out that I now had to sleep in a camp bed by the side of Meg in case she is distressed during the night and have not only to cook her food but to feed it with at mealtimes. On the other hand, I was able to point some of the mare positive things, principally my acquisition of the wheelchair (after a bit of a bureaucratic struggle) which enables me to push Meg up and down the hill so that we can visit either Waitrose or the park or sometimes both (as this morning) I also pointed out that the partner of one of our carers had called around and blitzed the garden for us so that Meg and I could round to the back of the house and enjoy the garden once more. I explained how poor I thought the GP services were in the supposedly proactive role catering for the carers of dementia sufferers and she was going to contact the practice manager of our GP practice to make sure that the relevant ‘flags’ were in place. Trying to get sense out of our GP practice is always difficult as one has to go through the process of web forms to elicit a telephone call in order even to get access to talk to a GP who does not visit Meg in person but relies only on whatever can be described in a telephone call. The Care Coordinator in whom I have a lot of confidence has several networks accessible to her and she was hoping to make some relevant points both to our GP but also to social services to ensure that I as Meg’s carer am getting the relevant attention and service to which I am entitled. She was particularly concerned that my own health might be suffering because I did not have the time or energy to conduct the things that need to be done such as blood pressure monitoring, access to dental services and goodness knows what else.
© Mike Hart [2024]