Thai vegetable curry with jasmine rice

Having been out yesterday, today I had a nice, restful day.

LOL, of course I didn’t – I’m an unpaid carer.

This morning we had the mobile opticians out and, as usual, mum worried herself literally sick at the prospect of people “invading [her] home”. She told me to send them away, that she didn’t want to see them, that she was too sick to leave her room.

Also as usual, mum was fine once they got here, although her head was hurting her. The optician confirmed there’s nothing wrong with mum’s eyes, and was considerably more concerned about mum’s headaches than the doctors seem to be.

(As an aside, I asked yesterday about getting mum a referral to the Pain Clinic and was told they don’t deal with headaches. I don’t know where that leaves us as the community doctors don’t seem to be able to prevent mum from being in near constant pain.)

The optician and the other person with her (an optical assistant, maybe?) were lovely: in their line of work they obviously see a lot of people with various kinds of dementia and were very kind to mum and supportive to me. We’re both getting new glasses, although mine are purely there for emergencies as I much prefer my contact lenses.

After they left, I got mum some lunch – she’s increasingly reluctant to get food herself, saying there’s nothing she likes despite me almost exclusively buying the things mum prefers – then faced the results of my recent spree of internet shopping while in the midst of one of those days where everything fights back.

The new carbon monoxide detector I bought, as mum’s had beeped its last beep, kept beeping irritably (and irritatingly) as the ‘new’ batteries from the drawer weren’t.

The new cooking basket, for holding pasta and veg while it boils so you can just lift that out and not have to struggle to carry a pan full of boiling water to the sink to drain the contents, got rather squashed in transit, but it will still work so I cba to go through the effort of returning it. Getting the box it came in to stay where I put it, and cutting the basket free of its plastic restraints, reduced me to frustration so intense I inadvertently scared mum a little.

Our new sunlight lamp is still in its box, waiting for me to summon the energy to get it plugged in. Ironic, really, as it’s supposed to give you more energy.

While fighting with that little lot, our landline rang and I asked mum to answer it as I had my hands full. Unfortunately mum has lost the concept of answering the phone: her idea of answering was to pick up the receiver and look at it until the caller gave up. I could see from the list of missed calls that it was the GP surgery, so I called and asked them to call my mobile instead from now on.

A short while later, the GP called back (on the landline, because apparently he didn’t my message) and asked what he could do for me. I then had to go through the story of mum’s headaches as if I had never spoken to anyone about it before, until he said he wanted to see mum in person. I said it really has to be a home visit, and he, rather sniffily, told me that he could see that mum had visited the surgery in person before, so why couldn’t she do it this time.

He did eventually agree to send someone to see mum next week, which is already giving mum something else to worry about. (I have had anxiety so I really empathise, while also noting that, as a carer – sweet goddess, it’s exhausting.)

By this time I was so exhausted even mum noticed, and asked if dinner was going to be straightforward. It should have been, but inanimate objects continued to attack: every time I cleared up one mess, or mum was kind enough to do it for me, something else threw itself on the floor.

The end result tasted good (mum, of course, complained it was too spicy; she ate it all, though, so it couldn’t have been that bad) but was a bit gloopy because I knew mum wouldn’t appreciate the thin sauce so (over) thickened it with cornflour (which snowed all over the counter, the floor, and my black trousers. 🙄

Now I need to finish the grocery order, once again attempting to find that balance point between mum’s complaints that “there’s nothing to eat” and that I’ve ordered too much and “where am I supposed to put all this stuff?” Thank goodness my latest snack order was also delivered today and, for the time being, I have all the chocolate I can eat to try and give my batteries enough energy to get me through to bedtime.