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.