Rainbow veg stirfry with roti; chocolate fudge cake with ice cream

Today started with a phone call from the Dementia Outreach Team, wanting to know if mum’s most worrying symptoms – threats of suicide, aggression, random pain – had occurred in the past week. I said no to the first two, yes to the third, but that she had been much better for the past few days.

Then they asked if the safeguarding concern I mentioned had been sent, and seemed rather disapproving when I said it had.

Unfortunately being woken by me talking on the phone immediately set mum up for a bad morning: she refused to get out of bed, complained of pain in her shoulder, head, stomach, back… just about everywhere, really, except in the tooth she has been indicating a problem with for the past few days.

She was sure “something bad” was going to happen, repeatedly asked if people were going to hurt her, and wanted reassurance that her friends were going to be there for her.

While trying to calm and reassure her, I knocked my insulated metal cup over onto my big toe, just where I always get the worst nerve pain. When the pain eased, I got dressed, and promptly put my thumb straight through the fabric of my t-shirt. 🤦‍♂️

Mum did get up after a while, and seemed much better until I received another phone call which got her “really worried” again. It was actually quite a helpful call: a response from the local ambulance service to my query about first aid courses.

In order to get certificated training you need to be able to get down on the floor and do CPR, which I can’t physically do. They are perfectly happy for me to attend the course and just sit out this bit, as I’m after the knowledge rather than the certificate.

The ambulance service’s training centre is at the top of three flights of stairs and therefore not accessible to me, but they also run the Council’s training courses which is in a more disability-friendly venue.

Which is a long winded way of saying – I can do first aid training, and will sign up next time mum is otherwise occupied and won’t go into a loop of anxiety and despair just because I’m talking to someone on the phone.

Many thanks to Isle of Wight Ambulance for their willingness to be flexible and help me get training that I can access despite my disability.

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Mum was in a decent-ish mood for the rest of the day and even, at one point, left me unobserved in my room for nearly half an hour. It says a lot about my daily life that I both noticed and appreciated that.

For dinner I made a vegetable stirfry that, due to a slight miscalculation on my part, turned out to be less veg with sauce and more like sauce with veg. I thought it was a bit artificial tasting, but mum liked it so much she asked if we could have it again. (Or, more accurately, told me “we have to have this again”.)

Then we had chocolate fudge cake – from the Tesco freezer section – with ice cream for me and cream for mum. Then we looked at each, looked at our empty bowls, then went back for the rest of the cake. It’s amazing how quickly mum’s concerns over her “big belly” disappear when there’s cake around!

And now to a tv documentary about working horses that has mum reminiscing about the ones we used to own. One of the things I really want to do when mum’s mental health is steadier is to take her to a local riding stables to interact with her beloved horses.

For now we’ll stick to a tabby puddy-tat inside, bats and birds outside (plus foxes and badgers, although I’ve never seen either, only heard them), and hopes for another peaceful day tomorrow.