Chicken pie and salad; berry trifle
Dementia isn’t just memory loss: it’s a total change in relating to and understanding the world.
Mum was looking for more of the fat balls we put out to attract wild birds (and, recently, wild rats) and told me the box was nearly empty. I said there were more in the new box in the garage.
“This one?” asked mum, holding up a bag of bird food.
“No,” I said, “a box.”1
“This one?” asked mum, pointing at a bucket.
“No,” I said, “a box. It’s right in front of you.”
Mum turned around and pointed at a box behind her, and then at a clearly empty box, before finally identifying the box that had indeed been right in front of her the whole time.
Having sorted that out, we went through the whole thing again to identify the bag of bird seed mum had initially held up.
This is a mildly interesting / amusing anecdote in its own right, but also makes the point that mum isn’t always the most observant of people (although she’s certainly not stupid, no matter how often she asks me). So when she commented after her GP appointment that “he wasn’t really listening to you, was he?” you’ll know that it was pretty obvious.
According to him, all of mum’s problems are down to stress, with a contribution from irritable bowel syndrome. I asked for help with managing the condition, and he used the words “it’s something you just have to live with”. My questions about mum’s headaches, and a problem she has with pain somewhere not talked about in polite society, were summarily ignored.
He grudgingly provided a prescription for a new type of medication (I’ll tell you what it is when it’s delivered and I can read the name off the box), and I’m going to show willing by giving them a try for a couple of weeks before asking to see another doctor who might actually listen to what we’re saying.
In related news, when we got home I looked up the active ingredient of a cream prescribed to mum for relief of the above-mentioned private pain, and immediately discovered that a common side effect is headaches. Should I have read the advice leaflet in detail and spotted that before letting mum use it? Yes, of course. Should the doctor have considered this possibility before dismissing mum’s symptoms as stress? Most definitely yes, imo.
I have now told mum not to use the cream anymore and have ordered a new cream without the active ingredient for delivery in the next few days.
I have also, over the past week or so, been trying to cancel some of mum’s car-related financial policies now she doesn’t drive anymore.
The insurance company (Ford, for the record) asked to speak to mum to confirm I was calling with her permission, then it was “no problem, all done, I’m so sorry I can’t refund you the whole premium but you’ll get the cost of the rest of the year back within three working days”. All done and dusted within 10 minutes.
The breakdown cover company (the yellow one – of you’re in the UK you’ll know which one I mean) also asked to speak to mum to confirm I was calling with her permission, but then I got “sorry, because she’s a Gold member only the Gold membership team can deal with it and they’re short staffed, I’ll take a message and they’ll call back within 72 hours.”
A week and a day later2 – today – I tried again, went through the confirmation process again, and this time got put through to the Gold membership team. She said “it’s your mother’s policy, only she can cancel, you can’t do it on her behalf even if she tells me it’s OK”.” I explained that mum has memory issues and wouldn’t be able to handle the conversation and, after some debate as the person I was speaking to apparently knew mum’s condition better than I do, I was told we need the “special needs” team. Naturally, “they’re short staffed, I’ll take a message and they’ll call back within 72 hours.”
I foresee a complaint. 🙄
Dinner was a hit with mum, because she chose it: we went into Tesco to get some cash to pay the driver who took us to the GP surgery, and I told mum to pick something for dinner while we were there. Mass-produced pie wouldn’t have been my choice, but mum ate it with enthusiasm, which is all I ask these days.
(I didn’t take a photo because you know what a supermarket pie looks like. Instead, here’s a photo of the toy windmill that mum saw and liked outside Tesco, so I bought it for her.)
Dessert was a Tesco Finest mixed berry trifle. It was part of a meal deal: I asked mum which dessert she wanted and she chose trifles. Tonight I asked if she wanted one and “urgh, no, I don’t like trifle”. Oh well, more for me. 😋
Is it pineapple sponge today? 