If you are the carer coping with dementia, it’s a good idea if you, at least, start off fit. I find myself constantly running to keep up and being overtaken by events. My mother’s dementia is principally vascular, which is always described as being the most unpredictable form. The text books probably mean unpredictable for the sufferer in terms of the effects; who can predict which of the tiny blood vessels in the brain are going to clog up next? Some days it’s my mother’s breathing, sometimes the giddiness, the verbal reasoning, the aggression, the memory, or indeed any other working of a person directed by the brain, in other words, all of them. For bystanders it is unpredictable in that you may find yourself having to cope with any of the effects at any time.
Yesterday, for instance, was going to be a crowded day anyway. Her cat was booked in for his annual service at the vet. This is important because he is old, probably eighteen, and absolutely has to outlast my mother, otherwise I’ll inherit a kitten and I still have my son’s two cats. Also it was the start of a month which meant I have to get the £10,000 needed for a month’s care from the dwindling resources at the building society into the bank. One of the inescapable facts you have to deal with is the aftermath of death, namely the provision of funeral expenses. As I have known of people having to take out bank loans to cover funeral costs and paying interest on the loans until the will goes through probate and the funds are released, which would have been a year for my father, I try to keep enough in the bank to cover the cost of a basic funeral. On Tuesday we are consulting the financial expert again on an equity release mortgage to set that in train so that the funds are available ahead of me needing them, even though I will have to pay interest on the amount I am borrowing against the value of the house. The consultant suggested a ‘draw down’ facility so that the funds are still in the house and only the amount removed each month attracts interest. What I do need to find out, ahead of the meeting, is the interest rates the bank will charge on the loan for a funeral versus the interest rates charged by the equity release mortgage provider and work out whether it is worth having the amount needed for a funeral lying around in the bank doing nothing. It’s all a bit complex but I know I have to get my head around it now, while my mother is stabilised and the carers can cope, because once the next health crisis gets going my days will be eaten up, as usual.
We were late setting out on the hour’s drive and further held up at the garage, which is also a posh food shop. The pavements were being washed so we had to park elsewhere and run in for the food. Then there was traffic and we were late anyway (because we are both so tired now after a year and a quarter of this), so, by the time we hit the further end of my mother’s town it was fifteen minutes to lunch time. On the second go we found the carefully concealed entrance of the multi-storey car park and my husband leant back to have a quick kip while I did the hundred yard dash.
Down the ramp, down three flights of stairs, into the shopping centre, down the escalator, through the centre, out into the high street. Into the building society, request the cheque, pointless chat, get the cheque, dash the length of the high street to the bank on the corner, into the bank, put in cheque, get cash for mother to pay cleaner, window cleaner, hair dresser, back out into the high street. Along the high street with my fat little leggies going ten to the dozen in their long linings, both my hips giving me gyp because my polymyalgiarheumatica has flared up because it’s winter and I’m running in posh heels. Into the shopping centre up the escalator, up three flights of stairs feeling for change in my pockets for the ticket machine, ticket franked, up the ramp and into the car, wake the husband and drive like the wind to the house.
Where we found my mother on the phone, talking rubbish and in ‘Shush, grown-ups talking’ mode, because there was a new carer who was letting her get on with it. When I finally got hold of the phone, with patience and diplomacy, I found it was the insurers. My mother had received a reminder about the household insurance being due for renewal but had decided to bin it. The insurers on the phone, were just reminding her her entire house and contents, which, unbeknown to her I am just about to put in hock to pay for her care, are uninsured, so if she burned them down she’d be out on the street and I’d be looking after her there. Naturally when I got to chat with the insurers, they have changed the rules about how you define the value of the contents, so I will have to search for a different insurers who can cover the ever-waning value of a load of old stuff that constitutes a collection. Having been in the field of dolls houses for quarter of a century I can tell you without stopping to think, that the value of a collection in monetary terms is exactly what it will fetch on the day of the auction, but the cost of insuring it to replace like with like will be a price beyond rubies, at the very least.
Having sorted that, I planted up the pots in the garden with the over wintering plants I’d brought with me. The garden has been a source of interest for my mother and I’m trying to keep it fresh. Waking up each morning she looks forward to seeing what new thing is in the garden. I also find that including one new unknown item in the shopping is of interest, this week it was persimmons.
While I was gardening, my husband received the new weekly prescription, delivered to the door, so I never got to find out if it had the changes the doctor suggested, I’ll have to look on Tuesday. Then I did the list, hand cream, face cream, new cupboard door knob. Cat to the vet, injections, chat. There was an option of giving him antibiotics for his bladder infection every day with his food but, as I’m not there and the carers change and don’t always communicate with each other and my mother has no memory, we had to opt for one injection then and another in twelve days.
Back with the cat, basket in the garage, check on mobility scooter and explain charging procedure for the millionth time, cup of tea, put new cover on bed, show new jumper, extract bag and receipt in case it has to go back and leave, just in time to catch the rush hour traffic. Triffic.
No matter how fast you run you cannot get ahead of dementia. It would be easier for me if my mother was in a home. She wouldn’t be answering the phone in any capacity other than having a chat. The money would be all sorted because her house would be sold and the proceeds invested. I wouldn’t have to do her shopping or anything else except visit. It would be a lot easier for me.
But the doctor said the care package is effective. Her heart is actually better. She is confident, she knows where she is, she has her cat and all the things from her life around her and the garden to look at and company. She is as well as an 88 year old demented widow can be.
I don’t think I can do better for her. It’s exhausting, it’s immensely stressful, it’s a rush all day each day when I’m going and a worry and time spent arranging everything remotely when I’m not. But my conscience is clear and I sleep the sleep of the just.
Just tired mostly.
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JaneLaverick.com – blogging on the trot.