Happy Birthday

Today it was my Mum’s 82^nd birthday.  A mile stone, especially after last year.

I went to see her with a bunch of flowers and box of her favourite dark chocolates.  We chatted for a while then she adamantly said she wanted to go out to Helmsely.  She hasn’t been out since moving to the home and to be honest I’d been a bit worried about taking her but we had a great afternoon.  The home lent me a wheelchair, and off we went.  Luckily it didn’t rain so we just had a wander round the town then went for a cup of tea.

I had strict instructions to get her back to the home by 4.30pm as they had organised a birthday tea.  I really didn’t expect it but they had made her a cake, with candles and strawberries and everyone sang Happy Birthday.  It was fantastic and really brought a tear to my eye seeing how happy Mum is there and how lovely they are with all the residents. 

After my last very negative post I am going to keep this positive. As Sft says let go of the anger, it’s not good. I think it was a build-up of stresses over the last few months and I “lost it” for a bit. Thank you all for your kind words and support.

Anyway all is good for now. I had a great Christmas. We only buy token pressies and I feel very lucky with what I received including slippers, socks & smellies. I visited mum on the morning. She is in a care home for only four weeks at the moment, I hope she can stay there permanently. When I got there she was sipping sherry and had been given some lovely presents by the staff. I stayed until they were sat for dinner then came home. Just the two of us to cook for and it was so relaxed. We had a four bird roast (from Aldi) with all the trimmings. It was great to have time off work, to know mum is being well cared for, spend time with OH (he was back to work on Boxing Day) and to relax – just what the doctor ordered!

It gave me time to work on plans for next year which are:

FINANCES
Overpay mortgage. I would love to give an amount but anything would be good
Have emergency savings of £1500 - We need to save another £700 to get to this figure
Continue to save into holiday fund - We are doing well with this
Sell – The stuff we don’t want. I want to use ebay lots and maybe do a car boot sale. This money will be used for things we would like to get for our home

HOUSE & HOME
De-clutter – There is stuff in every room that I want to re-home, either sell, give to charity shops/freecycle
Decorate – Every room apart from the bathroom needs fully decorating. The conservatory is the only room that just need a lick of paint the others removal of wall paper etc.
Grow more vegetables – After starting off really well, other things took over this year but the things that grew were very nice
Enjoy the garden – We didn’t sit out much at all this year. Next year I hope to enjoy it more

FUN
Have two holidays – Hopefully, we are saving for a main holiday and then a week somewhere later on in the year
Go camping
Do things from my life list – I am working on this and will post it soon

HEALTH
I want to and need to lose weight
Swim each week
Increase my (non-existent) fitness

So to start with I'm going to do the No/Low Spend January Challenge that alot of bloggers are doing.

I have freezer and cupboards full of food, so should only need to buy fresh vegetables/fruit, milk etc. Menu planning should make the most of everything we have and I don’t want to have any waste food.

I am fully stocked on toiletries but did run out of the tablet’s I have to take over Christmas so need to buy them.

The only other thing I can think of that I will need is petrol and cat food.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE XXX

Anger

I woke up angry and am still angry now!!

My role at work has been added too.
I was more or less told yesterday that my work isn’t as important as colleagues, I can put mine aside to answer calls but they can’t, they are far too busy. We are all busy and should work together as a team. That is fine but part of my responsibility is ensuring a legal requirement with deadlines is met. And we have been meeting them as the figures show but, no this new phone structure is more important. So guess what happened this morning when the report I have to do wasn’t done, “RC can you drop everything and do the report by 11am”. It just bugs me so much that when we expressed our concerns before they introduced the new system and they were just completely ignored.

The other thing I am absolutely fuming about is mum. Since being diagnosed she has been on medication for her dementia which has to be kept up. This was expressed by her mental health nurse and I checked while she was in the main hospital and they agreed. Today she had moved into a care home and I was discussing her meds with a member of staff and they said that this hasn’t been prescribed. I rang the hospital she was discharged from only to find out that a junior doctor had taken her off these tablets on the 4th November but they don’t know why. There is no note in the file. I am so bloody angry because she shouldn’t have been taken off the tablets and also if there is a physical, medical reason that should be recorded. They have said they will ensure she is put back on them, which to me says there was no reason for her to be taken off them. A manager is going to ring me tomorrow.

Sorry for the rant, I’m going to have a cup of tea and relax – deep breaths now :)

STF – I will start again with a new list, just got to keep battling on

Dannie – Thank you for your support, it is emotional but in a good way if that makes sense as I have so many happy memories.

Thanks for the video to dvd info, I will look into it.

Did I get it all done?

Short answer is no. Thank you for all your encouraging comments. I have completely underestimated and forgotten how much work goes into packing up and moving.

Thank you for the prioritising idea. I did it, with the cheque’s being first off the list.

I managed to pack up all of the things from mum’s kitchen and defrost the freezer. I didn’t empty the cupboards under the sink out as I will need to use the cleaning things.

I emptied the book shelf into boxes. I found a video that had the name of the farm on it. I can’t remember what is on it or if I’ve seen it. I have a feeling it might be a bit emotional as I think my dad could be on it. Can you transfer videos onto dvd’s?

I cleared out the chest of drawers in the lounge that housed things like light bulbs.

I started to bag up clothes for the charity shop. I didn’t drop them off as there was a Christmas market and parking was difficult.

It was a trip down memory lane, more of which I will post another time.

All the Christmas cards are written, stamped and ready to post. I have written mums too, working from a list that she had in the Christmas card box. Once I see who sends cards this year I will write a little note explaining that mum has been ill, and also of her new address.

Secret Santa’s for mine and OH brought and wrapped, with a couple of other pressies.

I had planned to do more yesterday but had a migraine so struggled a bit.

I visited mum on Saturday to be told by a nurse she was moving into a home today. It was all very sudden. However I got a call this morning to say she had a bit of an upset tummy over the weekend and they couldn’t risk moving her in case it was an infection. They hope to that she will move this week. We haven’t visited the home yet so I hope its ok. We have to wait 4 weeks for the financial assessment as they have a backlog. I will be glad when that is sorted as I’m worrying that it.

I picked up the fire guard from a Freecycler for my friend. It was a surprise for her as she mentioned last week that her new kitten – who is sooo cute – keeps trying to hurl herself onto the fire! She has been away this weekend so I left it outside her home, with a little note. She rang last night to say it fits perfect and to hear the joy and surprise in her voice was lovely.

OH has managed to pick up another shift tonight so that is some more money for the holiday fund, every little bit counts.

A List as Long as My Arm

Things to do this weekend.

• Send thank you card & cheque to mums carers
• Send note & cheque to mums window cleaners
• Start writing Christmas cards
• Buy works Secret Santa’s
• Wrap Christmas presents
• Sort out box of kitchen stuff from mums
• Tidy kitchen
• Washing
• Ironing
• Pack up rest of kitchen things at mums
• Defrost mums fridge & freezer
• Clean mums kitchen
• Sort out stuff under mums sinks
• Bring sewing & knitting things back from mums
• Empty desk at mums
• Empty drawers in lounge at mums
• Empty & pack up mums books shelf
• Pack up mums clothes that are too big for her & take to charity shop
• Pick up fire guard for friend from Freecycle

but first I'll just have a cup of tea...

15p, 90 cents and a sixpence

On the way to pay in the contents of my sealed pot I found 15p on the pavement, so the pot got a last minute top up. I was very pleased with the £46.23 total, plus 1 sixpence and 90 cents! I have another pot that I put £2 coins in and have £52 in there, so just short of £100. I think I am going to use the money for a new car stereo as the one in my car doesn’t work.

I cleared mums cupboards of her food and emptied her freezer. It was a good job we had nearly emptied ours as it is full again. The plates I am going to try and sell on ebay as they are Hornsea pottery and someone said they sell quite well. The other plates and pots and pans I don’t want I am giving to a charity that helps people moving into their first home, usually from being homeless. They also take furniture but until mum is settled somewhere I don’t know what she can take with her.

I have a note pad that I carry round with me and each time I think of something else to do I jot it down. A friend came up with a good idea to put a card in the local shops where mum lives to sell some of the furniture that we don’t need.

There are 3 main bits of furniture I would like to keep, a blanket box, a revolving book case and my dads desk.

When I visited mum today one of the nurses had cut and styled her hair, she looked great. I kept asking mum if I could cut it but she wouldn't let me. It was so nice of the nurse just to do it and I'm sure it made mum feel better.

I had a meeting with a lady at the bank, just running through things. She asked what we spend on groceries etc and I said around £150 at the most and I'd like to reduce it but that includes the cat/takeaways/eating out. She said "oh right so that’s a week"!! When I say a month she couldn’t believe it. I didn’t dare mention some of my blogging friends budgets!

The day leader where I volunteer is leaving at the end of the year. She is still going to be looking after all the food stores but unfortunately feels that she can no longer deal with some of our clients. She was explaining what she does as part of being in charge and asked if any of us wanted to take over her role. W said she would nominate me and B then seconded it. I didn’t say anything. I am very flattered that they think I could do the job but I’m not sure. I will think about it.


Thank you all for your kind words and support and for listening to my ramblings. xx

Hello

Things have been a bit busy.

After being told several weeks ago on a Friday that the doctors didn’t think that mum would last the weekend, they now want to discharge her from hospital.

As you know mum has dementia but I think that we were putting a lot of her behaviour down to that and didn’t realise how physically ill she was. She had pneumonia, her blood count was very low and something was wrong with her heart. The day the docs called me in so explain how poorly she was they had also found a massive blood clot on her lung, which was pressing on her heart. She had a blood transfusion that night and also had several B12 injections which boosting her blood count. As she was refusing food and also refused a food tube I asked if I could go in at meal times to try and feed her. The nurses had to respect mums wish if she said she didn’t want to eat, where as I could be a bit more encouraging “one more spoon” kind of thing. As I blogged before seeing her feed herself was a great sight, not only was she well enough to pick up the spoon but she also wanted to eat, which was good, as some people wondered if she had given up.

The hospital she has been in for the last few weeks has been for rehab. They have managed to get her walking again and getting dressed. Now we are at the point where they feel that they have done all they can, and she is ready to move, this time into a care home, as she would be unable to cope and wouldn’t be safe living on her own.

So we are starting the process of finding a new place for mum to live, and the minefield of social service procedures. Everything seems to be based around whether you are self-funding or not. This is where the confusion begins as I thought mum would be as she has some savings, however after a brief telephone call to her financial advisor it appears they can’t touch her money because of how it is invested. It’s all very complicated and now we have to have a financial assessment. Of course money talks to which home you can go in. We looked round 3 today. The first one we weren’t that keen on, the second one from what we saw was fantastic, I could have moved in there myself. And third was nice and only a 5 mins walk from where we live.

As well as finding a new home, I have give notice and to sort out mums flat, organising what to keep, if we want anything and how to get rid of things we don't need/want.

Needless to say my head is spinning and all this has to be done before Christmas – wish me luck!!


Update on OH
I didn’t post much about what happened as I think we were both in shock. OH works in a hotel and heard a lot of shouting; he investigated to find a man beating up his wife in the reception. She had ran from their room to try and get away from him. There was blood all over and their room had been trashed. He tried to calm the man down but got two punches in the head. The police were called and the man arrested.

Thank you all for your hugs and kind words, they mean a lot.