Jacket potato with cheese and Mediterranean veg / jam roly-poly with custard

Today was the hospital appointment to check mum’s eye.

Mum spent the morning fussing, panicking, attention seeking, and generally getting on my nerves, but eventually we got there. I was told to ask at reception for a ride to the Eye Department, but the tandem scooter driver was otherwise occupied so I walked. It’s not, all things considered, a very long way, but when you’re on crutches any distance seems twice as long as it actually is.

When mum was called for the initial tests, the overseeing nurse told me there was nowhere to sit and I should wait in the waiting room. I explained that mum has Alzheimer’s, and gets confused and distressed, but the nurse insisted I wasn’t needed, and assured me I would go with mum when she went to see the doctor.

I went and sat back down, with one ear attuned to the sound of the nurse asking mum questions and clearly getting confused, contradictory responses. Then another nurse went in, then it went quite.

About 10 minutes later, one of the hospital volunteers came to find me. She had found mum sitting, alone, in a different waiting area, (understandably) distressed at being in an unknown place with no-one around. The volunteer told me that mum “seemed a little confused”, which… well, that happens with dementia. 🤷‍♂️

The volunteer had got mum a cup of tea (that failsafe stabiliser of British society) and, on her next pass through the waiting area, gave me a ‘how to make a complaint’ leaflet from Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS). The volunteer was good. The long-vanished nurses were not, and I will be making a formal complaint about them dismissing a carer and leaving a dementia sufferer alone and afraid in a strange place.

Then we went in to see the doctor and he was, not to put too fine a point on it, a dick: arrogant, rude, and dismissive – the epitome of the stereotypical high-handed doctor. He asked mum about her symptoms then, when I tried to answer, talked over me in a manner that made it clear he had already decided I had nothing useful to say.

The third or fourth time he cut me off, I stopped talking until he also stopped, then said “I will answer you when you stop interrupting me”.

I felt rude doing it, but it worked: from that point onwards, he not only listened but showed a respectful interest in what I said. By the time he finished, with a detailed but easy-to-follow explanation of mum’s condition, he even managed a smile.

That explanation was, thankfully, that mum has a perfectly textbook posterial vitreous detachment. As on Saturday night, it sounds terrifying but is pretty normal in older people, and mum shows no signs of any complicating factors.

What a relief!

We came home just in time for me to lie down for half an hour before I had to get up and make dinner. It was a very easy dinner, but absolutely tailored to what mum likes.

The jam roly-poly was meant to serve four but we divided it in two, and then mum had two chocolate éclairs to finish. Not that I’m in any position to comment as I am already planning on diving into a bag of chocolate caramel cookies once mum is settled for the night.

And with that, from one very weary carer, goodnight.