King prawn and green bean laksa

(Some of the following is a rehash of discussions on my Facebook page, for which apologies to those who already know all of this.)

Having spent most of yesterday in bed, mum unsurprisingly didn’t sleep well last night. Equally unsurprising, if deeply personally irritating, was that mum felt the need to keep checking on me. I wedge my door shut at night, to keep it from blowing open and banging on my side table, so mum couldn’t get in and instead called through the door until I replied.

The final time she did it was at a time verging on being OK to wake up at, and I was just trying to decide whether to give in and get up or to bury my head under the pillow and try for more sleep when my phone rang. I was too slow to answer it, so the caller then tried the landline. By the time mum had brought it to me, holding it like she thought it might bite her, I was too late to answer that one, too.

The caller was the ANP from the GP surgery, calling to find out if the new painkillers were helping mum. Given that mum was, at the time, curled up on her bed clutching her head, and when I checked on her told me she wanted to die, the answer was a simple “no”.

A brief text conversation later and the GP practice’s roving healthcare provider, who I will refer to as S, was dispatched to help. By the time he arrived mum had got up, but was feeling very sorry for herself. As usual, having originally told me to send him away, mum was sweet as coffee ice cream to S, although it was obvious that she wasn’t really following our conversation.

The outcome of the visit is that mum’s dose of antidepressants has been increased, to hopefully put an end to the “I want to die” stuff, and she has been prescribed a week’s worth of stronger painkillers. These came with the instruction to me to call back at the end of that week to advise if they’re helping. If not, as S said, it’s on to trying to work out a plan C.

S also gave me contact details for someone who provides respite care visits for people with problems like mum’s, who he can personally vouch for. That deals with my concerns about inviting an unknown person to the house for an interview, as I at least know that she is who she says she is. I also left a message with a small care agency in the village asking about the same service.

These phone conversations were supervised by mum, who interjected various comments and questions (“who are you talking to?” “Are you trying to get rid of me again?” “I don’t want you to throw me away!”) until I had to tell her to leave and I would tell her all about it afterwards. That caused a sulking, but one of the few good things about mum’s memory issues is that she soon forgets that she’s unhappy with me.

The rest of the afternoon has been an endless loop of “my head hurts”, “I can’t stop weeing”, “why does my head hurt?”, “why am I having these water problems?”, “my stomach hurts”, “now my head hurts too”. Even the arrival of the lovely Lil (our cleaner – not her real name) didn’t stop the flood of complaints. Some time I will have to tell Lil that I know how much mum likes her by her willingness to share details of her bathroom issues.

Dinner was laksa ramen from a kit, with added king prawns and green beans from the freezer. The sauce (definitely not soup, whatever the packet implied) was a bit too spicy for mum, although I thought it was mild, coconutty, and really very good for something that can be kept in the cupboard.

Tomorrow is another busy – and, for mum, potentially upsetting – day, with a visit from the Memory Service almost immediately followed by a phone assessment from the mental health team. I’m exhausted thinking about it, and we haven’t even finished today yet. 🥱

Goodnight, all.