Garlic chicken, Mediterranean veg, jacket potatoes

In your latest dispatches from the front lines of carer burnout:

As soon as I moved this morning, before I was even properly awake, mum was talking at me through my bedroom door. However, this did come with a positive: Suki peered around my door, saw I was awake, and gave a delighted “meow!” as she ran towards me for some fuss.

(Last night, after mum went to sleep, Suki came up on my bed for snuggles and shameless posing. Then this morning, when mum made Suki jump, our dear little tabby ran to me and hid behind my legs, rather than under her cupboard. I think I am officially Suki’s Person. 🥹)

I made the mistake of telling mum she sounded brighter (which she really did), so she said “not really” and started up with “my head really hurts, my back hurts, everything hurts, I’m falling apart, my head really hurts…”

Not looping – I know the difference by now – just incessant complaining, which had me worn out before I had even tasted my first cup of coffee of the day.

Once I had had that coffee, and some breakfast, and my meds, and persuaded mum to have some breakfast so she could have her meds, I spent 15 minutes on hold to have a 30 second conversation requesting a longer course of steroids for mum. With the weekend approaching, and the local pharmacy being very slow to make deliveries, I didn’t want to risk ending up without the meds that are (if they’re right about the condition mum has) preserving mum’s sight.

The doctor responded quite quickly with a prescription for another 10 days’ worth of tablets and instructions to contact him urgently if the hospital hasn’t been in touch by then.

The rest of the day was spent assuring mum that no, the doctors haven’t forgotten her, and the tablets will help, and no, it’s not her fault that she’s in pain, and yes, I too hope they sort it out soon, and so on and on and on until I was perilously close to snapping. At which point my legs failed to follow my instructions as I moved away from the bathroom sink and I tripped, falling sideways into the shower door. Ouch.

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This evening I took the path of least resistance and cooked one of mum’s favourite meals, because her head was still hurting and I needed to make sure she has had at least one good meal today. This time I learned from previous experience and cooked three potatoes, so if mum took the biggest one (and she did) I would still have a decent amount on my plate.

And so to tonight, and the usual “there’s nothing to watch, it’s ridiculous” (as if the scheduling of things that aren’t to mum’s taste is a deliberate insult. And so I’m off to get something sweet to hopefully keep my temper from getting any more sour.