Mushroom stroganoff with horseradish mash

I cried today.

I spent the whole morning comforting and reassuring mum as she panicked over the hospital appointment she had hassled me until I arranged. The taxi I had booked turned up half an hour before the scheduled time so I didn’t have time to eat lunch.

We got to the hospital early to find the smell of beef stew hanging deliciously in the air. I checked us in while mum went to the loo, then sat in the waiting room, periodically reminding mum while we were there. I couldn’t get beef stew, obviously, but I did get a massively overpriced Snickers bar from the vending machine.

The consultant was wearing a sunflower lanyard. I really shouldn’t try to diagnose on the basis of one brief meeting, but I suspect ASD. I got on very well with him, as I generally do with people on the spectrum, and we ended up in a friendly argument about the benefits (and otherwise) of chronic stress, which had nothing at all to do with our reason for visiting but caught our interest.

Mum, having cried with pain until I arranged the appointment, told the consultant she didn’t know why she was there, then that her condition was “just a bit uncomfortable”. He confirmed the previous diagnosis but took a biopsy just to be sure, gave a different treatment schedule, with a strong unspoken suggestion that the previous treatment schedule was idiotic. He also strongly suggested that mum’s main problem is boredom, and that she needs to find something to occupy her brain. (I told you I liked him.)

That done, I called for a taxi and was told they were all busy and we’d have to wait at least an hour. I relayed this to mum, who said “but I want to go home!”, as if hanging around a hospital waiting room was my idea of a good time. While we waited, I went to the loo – the accessible one, which was at the far end of the corridor – hobbled back, and mum again demanded to go home.

I cried. I’m just so tired of everything being such hard work, with no support and practically no help, and getting nothing but criticism and complaints in return. Mum hugged me and apologised, and the taxi arrived after only 40 minutes, so that’s something.

At some point during our wait, I mentioned that we have someone coming in as a candidate for providing respite care for a couple of hours once a week. This was a mistake, as mum has repeatedly told me that she doesn’t want anyone to visit, that she’s fine on her own (she isn’t, as you know), and that she’s worried the visitor will steal her music CDs. I confess I didn’t hide my increduality when explaining that that just wasn’t going to happen. (Apart from anything else, who listens to CDs now? Most people I know stream their music.)

[Mum has just come out of the bathroom to tell me how much pain she’s in, including in areas she earlier assured the consultant were fine. And she wonders why I sometimes get frustrated with her.]

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I was about to start on the usual ‘what we had for dinner’, but I just remembered that the day started with the resolution of a mystery: why that daft policy that a broken items have to be returned to the council before an unbroken one can be provided in its place?

The reason none of us could figure it out, isthat that’s not the policy: it was a misunderstanding of the actual policy, which is that small items that are no longer needed – because the person borrowing them has recovered – have to be returned by the borrower. (Large items like powered beds and hoists are collected, as they don’t expect people to have the ability to return these.)

Broken items that are still needed will be replaced.

Many thanks to the nice person who called me and explained this, and promised to make sure everyone in the department understands it correctly. Even more thanks to the delivery driver who lives locally and has offered to bring me a new frame on his way home from work tomorrow.

And now back to dinner. After the trials of today, I’m exhausted and ready for dinner to be just presented to me. I was also stressed, though, so in the mood to indulge in some therapy by frying pan.

So I made mushroom stroganoff, using a Simply Cook kit. The accompanying mash was ready-made, and I divided it in half so mum could have plain mash and I could have horseradish mash. Even with this adaptation, it’s not the sort of meal that mum enjoys, and it’s testament to her hunger levels that she ate it all and scraped the bowl clean.

Now I must go and hang up the laundry I put in the machine before going out, and have only just remembered. Oops.