Cheese and ham croissants

The last few days have been so busy that I struggle to believe that it’s still only Wednesday.

Yesterday morning we had, at the third attempt, a meeting with the Memory Service coordinator, the previous two attempts having been cancelled due to illness. I’m pleased to say it was worth the wait: she was very kind, and very helpful.

Outcomes from the meeting (in bullet point, both because I’m tired and because I want this to be a blog post and not an essay):

• mum will be starting on different meds for her Alzheimer’s. The new ones are apparently particularly good for people with anxiety, and will hopefully also be easier to get hold of than donepezil, which has supply chain issues atm;
• we will be transferring our business to an online pharmacy, as they are likely to find it easier to get the specific meds mum needs than our little independent pharmacy;
• I have a folder of useful contacts, which is both good (yay, support!) and bad (not more phone calls!);
• it was suggested that we get a lot more carer hours, upping our current two hours once a week to three hours three or four times a week, so I have more time to go out and be me;
• mum was told, gently but firmly, that she needs to do more to keep her brain active and distracted from her pain. The coordinator instantly ran into the same problem that I have when I say that: mum wrinkles her nose and says “I’ll think about it”, in a tone that makes it clear that the only thing she’s thinking is “no”. But at least I now have an official recommendation that mum can ignore, so that’s progress of a sort?

Then, yesterday afternoon, I had my first session with the Pain Clinic physio team, all the way over in Ryde. (It’s only about a 40 minute drive from home, but in Island distance that’s the sort of journey Norse sagas were written about.) I was honestly dreading the meeting, expecting the sort of dismissive attitude I have been on the receiving end of too often.

I was pleasantly surprised, though, to find that the physio was sympathetic to my situation – both my unknown health condition and my role as a carer. She has given me nine exercises to do, with firm instructions to take it slowly and carefully, and to stop if anything hurts.

Midway through the conversation, I got a phone call from mum, saying something about going out on Friday. All became both clearer and more confusing when Lady Friday took over the phone – on a Tuesday.

I’m sure I agreed to the change in the schedule this week but, try as I might, I am coming up with a blank in the relevant memory file. My memory is usually so good that it unnerves people, so it unnerves me that I can’t remember this.

Then I came home, cooked oven chips and made an omelette, then put some Gu chocolate soufflés in the oven. Mum and I agreed these were beautifully light and very chocolatey, but getting the stuff out of a burning hot glass dish without burnt fingers was a bit too much of a challenge!

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And then to today, which should have been straightforward but, of course, wasn’t.

First task was to arrange a taxi to this afternoon’s hairdressing appointment. My usual taxi driver said he thought he could do it, but to text him and he would confirm. He didn’t, so I asked my phone’s AI to text him a chasing message. Which it did, three times. 😳

Then I had to phone the hospital about mum’s appointment issues: 15 days only of ‘essential’ meds, which she shouldn’t stop taking, and 30 days until the ‘urgent’ consultancy appointment. As the AI said, “the math¹ isn’t mathing”.

It’s an answerphone line, with the promise that they will ‘attempt’ to respond within 5 working days. No hurry, it’s only mum’s sight at stake, after all. /s

Then I went to do some laundry. I filled the machine, put in the detergent pods and fabric conditioner, pressed the ‘on’ button and – nothing happened.

Yep, the washing machine has followed the freezer into unplanned obsolescence, because if there’s one thing I really don’t need, it’s another problem. (If there’s one thing I really DO need, it’s some clean clothes. Sadly, I think I’m out of luck on that front for a while.)

The rest of the day was mostly spent, like the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, attempting to believe six impossible (or at least irreconcilable) things at once: mum’s headache was at the same time “not too bad” and “hurts so much all the time”. She wanted her hair cut and didn’t want anyone to touch it. She wanted to see a doctor to fix her head, and didn’t understand why she had to go to the hospital as she felt fine.

By the end of the afternoon my head hurt, from trying to work out what was going on.

Finally, I got mum out of the house to have her hair cut (and mine as well, for that matter). On the way back, I saw a cat in the next road who looked so like Suki that I worried throughout a makeshift dinner of croissants with the last of the cheese and ham that it was Suki, and she had somehow got out.

Of course, she was simply hidden under her cupboard and emerged when I made sufficient pspspsps noises. That, at least, is one thing I don’t have to worry about: my Suki is here, and purring, and all is right with the feline part of the household.

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1. It speaks American English. As is apparent here. ↩︎