Help!! Mum is 88, I am 68 and she only wants me!!

[Joan_1501]

Oh Jenny I have told mum that the doctors say she needs 24 hour care and that there is no way I can look after her 24 hourly but she just does NOT understand!! (I'm now 72 to her 92!!!! ) She calls me a traitor, that she will come back and haunt me and that I will have it on my conscience that I have not looked after her. And that my late father would be horrified at how I am behaving towards her and that her mother would be disgusted with me! She also has started to give me 'the look'!!! My skin is getting thicker by the minute!!!

Yes I do feel vey sorry for her and yes I know that it's the dementia which makes her like this. In her head she has been dumped in this home which she hates and she just wants to go back to her nice bungalow which is quiet, warm and cosy and the bathroom in easy reach from each room. And of course she can look after herself! !??!! My poor mother. You can't reason with a person who has dementia and I do find this very frustrating. She has an answer for everything. And when I have told her bluntly that if she doesn't stop moaning I will go she just tells me I am threatening her!!

Yes it's a good idea to go little and often. Although I have been going very regularly since she was admitted I didn't visit Thursday and Friday last week and I'm not going tomorrow either. Going to get into a routine of two days visiting, two days off and see how that works out. When the weather gets a bit warmer and I feel she's more settled (I live in hope! !) then yes I will take her out in the car. Don't want to do that just yet in case she thinks we're taking her home!!

Thank you Jenny for all your kind suggestions. Joan x

[Joan_1501]

P.S. I'm a seventeen minute drive away from the nursing home , fifteen minutes if no traffic hold ups!! Xx

[bowlingbun]

Joan,

My mum was physically frail, no alternative to 24/7 care for her last year. I always took in fresh flowers, and they would be the focus of my visit. (Mum was a keen gardener). So I'd show her the flowers, take the old ones out of the vase, rinse the vase etc.in mum's en suite, then arrange them, etc. etc. The nurses always said they knew i'd been recently because of the flowers, and I felt they were a reminder of my love when I wasn't there.

If your mum has dementia, does she know when you visited last? Would it matter if you made a visit just once a week?

[Pet66]

Joan
Perhaps don't say you will go if she doesn't stop moaning? I have said to hubby I'm going for a walk, hope you are in a better mood when I get back. Then I walk in the corridor, get a drink of water, then go back. The last time, he asked me if I felt better!!! Obviously didn't say it was you, or suchlike, just yes I am ok thankyou. As far a going home, I used to say, we haven't had any discharge paper yet, blah blah. Turn to being the doctors fault. I visit every other day, sometimes have 2 days. He doesn't realise. Depends on his mood as to the greeting I get. Somehow you learn to deal with it.
Sorry if the post seems like reverting to me, but it's the best way I find to explain.
At the the moment, hubby is in hospital, so visiting is different.

[Joan_1501]

Thank you Mrs Average, bowling bun and Pet .

Will try the flower routine also tell her I'm going for a short walk and hope that she's in a better mood when I return!! I actually did walk away for ten minutes yesterday. Went and washed up in the small kitchenette. The carers said I can wash up any time I like!!

Mum now apparently getting up and walking with her zimmer (at a very fast pace! !)
No I feel as though I couldn't only visit once a week, not at the moment anyway. Had today off and will ring later to see how she's been.
.not going tomorrow either. Hopefully she will have forgotten that I've not been. . Joan

.

[Joan_1501]

Pet.

My heart goes out to you as it must be much more difficult when it is your husband who has the dementia. Two of my friends are going through the same ordeal as you. Two other friends also experienced thia awful disease with their late husbands.

I tell anyone who will listen about this brilliant site as I have found it so supportive.

Kind regards and a big hug. Joan x

[Pet66]

Joan
Thank you for your kind thoughts.
It's painful, to watch someone with dementia, and although love for a partner is different to love for a parent, or child it's all emotional and draining. I see the pain my DDs are going through and that also breaks my heart.
My heart goes out to you too.

[Joan_1501]

Hi everyone.
As you know mum now in nursing home self funding. Checklist 're Continuing Health Care completed but only scoring a B for skin integrity even though District nurse and myself think it should be an A.

Anyway, I've just thought of something. The wound in question (which she has had for nearly seven years and won't heal because of her always tampering with it) actually occurred whilst she was in the care of the NHS. Her leg was knocked whilst being transferred from one hospital to another resulting in a large "blood blister" which had to be surgically lanced by a plastic surgeon and was drained of over a litre of blood. Now I know that the whole thing was an accident but if the ambulance staff has been more careful this wouldn't have happened and mum wouldn't have suffered all these years. All the recurring infections in this wound can't have really helped her physical health either and if it hadn't happened she might not well have been in the position she is now, having to pay £716 per week for nursing care and me trying to fight for CHC for her/trying to prove that this wound is a primary heslth need!

So, is what I'm trying to say is what do you all think? Am I wasting my time?

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Joan x

[Chris From The Gulag]

Hi Joan ... no , you are not wasting your time.

CHC / primary health care need ?

One for a medical practioner to add his / her weight to the CHC process , me thinks.

If one was involved with the application , he / she would be my first port of call.

Short of that , the actual CHC process is a very specialised field

( Regardless of what's in that now infamous CHC / NHS Continuing Healthcare thread ! )

Others who have been through it , and succeeded , will be better qualified to answer than me.

I hope one or two post their own recommendations , and possible guidance , to get things
moving forward.

Long shot but ... Carers UK Advice Team ... I too am seeking clarification on CHC / NHS Continuing Healthcare
... can they handle it ? ... only one way to find out ... best by email :

https://www.carersuk.org/forum/support- ... line-24147

Time costs money ... as you know only too well ?

[Joan_1501]

Mum has been in the nursing home for eight weeks now plus four weeks in hospital prior to N.H admission.

She is not settling, very angry and blaming me for "putting " her there. Staff says she becomes more distressed after tea , demanding to go home . They say she is grieving and they are organising a psychiatric nurse to assess her to see if there is any kind of medication which could he given to her to help lift her mood.

Has anyone on the forum had experience of this/know of any literature I could read etc.

Thank you.

Joan x