Yes I have a cold. ‘Tis the season and all that but most of all, I believe ‘twas the stresses of the last couple of weeks at the start of this year depressing my immune system. The mortgage lender refused to lend extra so my mother could pay for my son’s cat’s treatment to save its life. I have not of course told her this, she believes she is paying and has been constantly thanked for something she’s not doing but did do a bit before they said she couldn’t. So time ticked on and we got to the bit where the monthly bill for £10K arrived, the bank card had been hacked and I wondered if we had the funds to pay the bill. And for lo, we did by fifty quid, just make it.
But I still had to do her shopping and didn’t want to do it online with a hacked card until I knew the hackee or source of hacking. I have a pretty good idea as I only used the card in two places this year. One was the vets and the other was Ocado, which is Waitrose supermarket online. Ocado rang and were brilliant, the vet however, when told of the problem one visit, did not charge the visit after next. How odd was that?
We were at the vet again yesterday. Since the start of the year Russell has had Vitamin K injections every day until last Saturday. He then had two days off and I and my cold had most of one day in bed, with him on the end of it, then yesterday we went to take him for a blood test £97. I’ll say that again. A blood test £97. To see if he is making vitamin K himself. He is certainly eating for Britain, he has put on more than half a pound. I could tell without the scale at the vet, I have started staggering around again when I heft him on to my shoulder to carry him to his food. It’s tough around here for some of us.
The vet will ring me with the results when they have them, or pop round with champagne possibly. I informed the S&H who did agree that once his cats live with him again he will have to take out insurance.
Meanwhile on Monday there was little choice, sneezing and awful but to go to my mother’s and do some clever stuff with money to save the day. I have often spoken in dementia diaries about the need to get appropriate help from the outset and indeed the main reason for writing them is so that anyone else landed in the same awful situation will know what appropriate help is wanted and how to get it. Nevertheless one of the things to recognise is that the bridge over troubled water that will lay me down is likely to be you. Early on, worried about money, I had put a lump of it into a separate, easy access, savings account. I did it so my mother didn’t have to go into town to get money every week but I also thought it might just be handy. And for lo! It was. The cavalry coming to my rescue over the hill of the bank stopping the hacked bank card with which I can access money and no money in the account after the bills and still needing fabulous food to tempt the invalid and the shower at my mother’s and the guest shower breaking simultaneously and a big plumber’s bill that my mother paid for with all the money she had in her bag because plumbers ‘like cash you know’ (I know, I know) – was me. Dah diddle lah da da daaa! Jane will now get out of bed and run round a town fifty miles away in the freezing rain to get money out of the building society and put it in the bank to get money out of the post office and run to the supermarket to buy tempting treats and back to the house to find the carer and my mother couldn’t wait but have had tea and cake without us. Thank goodness the OT can do the drive back. I just sat in the car and snivelled and wished to die. Back home I fed the cats and crawled into bed.
Here I am a day and a half later on the mend. I have been doing some soothing marbling of paper with which I shall write some thank you letters. I should probably send one to myself while I’m at it.
And the OT was nice too. Last night out of cat food because he’d gone shopping and hadn’t found the right kind, and out of menthol tissues because I’d used them all, he put his coat back on and went out to another supermarket and got tissues and cat food and I doled out one and snivelled in the other and went back to bed.
Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down, mainly on the outside of the bed until I can find the strength to crawl under the duvet.
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Jane wash ash hooso wash errgh Laverick .cob