The last few days have been fairly dreadful. There seems to be little doubt that my mother is losing her social controls. This is alarming because the part of the brain that deals with social controls is different from the previously affected areas. The damage is spreading.
The two phone calls over the weekend were very upsetting. My mother was very aggressive, insisting that I either go and stay with her because she was dying immanently, or I could just drop dead myself, which option she outlined loudly and at length. The world was wrong and it was my fault. After each phone call I felt utterly dejected and it took several hours before I felt even slightly normal. Fortunately I had some good therapy available. I had decided as it was only two weeks to the show, out of all the things I could do, I should pour porcelain.
Porcelain slip is mud indoors. It is interesting, exacting and fairly filthy in a clean sort of way. I love pouring porcelain and I had a lot to pour. I still haven’t poured the new 24th dolls but brand new moulds take a lot of concentration, nobody apart from me has yet done hollow 14 part dolls 3 inches tall at most, it’s a bit of a technical tour de force. It cannot be done with one eye on my mother. So I decided to go for things I’d done before and top up the forty eighth scale sell outs, of which there are many including most of the fireplaces and the ever popular Aga and a cat.
So for four glorious days I poured over my work except when I was being shouted at in the mornings. On Monday morning I made the phone call, dreading the outcome but my mother was niceish but very brief. Brief on the phone is nothing she has ever been in her life. Telephones were made for my mother. There is a captive listener at the other end and you can’t see them yawning.
This morning the same, the call lasted five minutes. She had a new carer and liked her. The weather was wet. She had slept well. How was I? Well she hoped I could garden before it rained, she needed to visit the cloakroom goodbye. No accusations, attempts to trip me up, disapproval of assorted people, the council, something in the newspaper, the food, the carpet the carer the cat, nothing.
I spent all day waiting for the other shoe to drop. I went out to find the new show venue and got nearly there but the sat nav fell off the window twice and then told me to go home. As this was the first time I had used a sat nav I felt it wasn’t a total failure, I’ll go at the weekend with the other half armed with the sat nav on his phone as a spotter. I did find a row of shops in the vicinity but it was tipping down and I didn’t fancy getting soaked just to be directed two streets away. I did stop in a driveway and fiddle with the machine that wanted to know if I would like an ambulance but I thought that was a bit drastic for just getting lost. So I switched it off and switched it on again, or rebooted as we say in the trade and it announced firmly we were going home and I agreed.
Then I went and did the shopping and got thoroughly wet. The minute I opened the door I knew the shoe had dropped. The care agency manageress had been trying to get hold of me, my mother had been going nuts; most of the office staff had been out to her, the other half had issued permission for the use of the PRN drug but they wanted my say-so.
The PRN drug was put into the locked drugs box a couple of months ago. It is a strong sedative. PRN stands for Pro Re Nata, Latin for When the Thing is Born. The Thing, in this case being my mother going loudly round the bend. The use of a sedative had been suggested by the care agency some months ago. I explained it carefully to my mother on a good day and she thought it was a sensible idea if she got very ill to have a one-occasion get out. On the occasion the use of the drug by the agency has to be sanctioned by me and a doctor.
So I sanctioned the use of it, verbally and in an email and the manageress went off to find a doctor. It shouldn’t be too difficult. There is a hospital appointment in December but I phoned the hospital doctor’s secretary yesterday to say I was doubtful we could get my mother there because she is now frightened of leaving the house and being very aggressive might be upsetting to other patients. So the doctor was up to date with developments and as I haven’t heard further I assume the manageress got hold of a doctor and my mother is now sedated if not sedate.
This is the hard part. If my mother were in a residential home all of this would be happening without my involvement. It was my mother’s choice to remain at home and for the most part she has been less miserable there than if she were anywhere else.
We are going for the usual visit tomorrow. You couldn’t find two people less enthusiastic about driving forty miles for a visit with a family member.
What will happen? How will she be?
Stay tuned.
I am so glad my father is not around for this bit.
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JaneLaverick.com – hard times.