Wholewheat noodles with bacon and asparagus in honey-soy sauce

Not much to report for recent days, I’m afraid.

Mum’s headaches are back in full force, triggering (at least today) an enhanced level of confusion that is making my head spin.

“Why isn’t that nice doctor doing anything about my headaches?”, asks mum.

I say “he’s the one who has referred you for the hospital appointment”. I don’t say “you know, the one you’ve been panicking over for the past four hours”, although I certainly think it pretty loudly.

“I have a hospital appointment? What for?”

“The headaches, remember?”

“Oh. Who arranged that, then?”

That distant thudding sound you may have heard earlier was me hitting my head against the nearest wall.

I attempted to distract mum with some gardening, planting the French bean seeds I bought because they’re mum’s favourite veg. Unfortunately, mum was on a single thought track: her head.

Every topic of conversation was steered back to the pain.”We’ll have homegrown green beans this summer!” “Possibly, if my head stops hurting.””Oh, look, the bluebells I planted are flowering – they’ll start spreading now!” “Yes, but only if my head stops hurting.”

I explained again that her headaches aren’t a sign of anything serious: she doesn’t have a tumour, she’s not having a stroke…”Thank you, that helps. But my head really is hurting.”

At least I discovered that the bluebells which, if I’m honest, I didn’t so much plant as drop into holes made by the badger, came up while I wasn’t looking.

This evening, thankfully, the pain has apparently died away, chased out by a bowl of noodles with crispy bacon, crunchy asparagus, and a savoury-sweet sauce of soy sauce, honey, and some ‘spicy stirfry mix’ which seems to be mostly salt and sugar with the tiniest amount of dried chilli. (And I know that mix might have been better with pasta, but mum told me a while ago that she didn’t like pasta, so I went for noodles. 🤷‍♂️)

Then we had jam roly-poly with cream / custard, which mum practically inhaled, then went straight to the cupboard to find a jam sponge pudding for second dessert. I suggested she wait ten minutes to see if she still has room for it (I certainly couldn’t eat anything else atm), and she sulked at me.

If there’s one useful thing I took away from the abortive dementia training sessions, it’s that I’m never going to win.

And with that depressing realisation, good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.