Chipolatas, parmentier potatoes, salad

I woke up this morning from a night of vivid dreams of being slithered over by worms (my sleeping brain has some truly inventive ways of interpreting my sensory disturbance!) feeling almost as tired as when I went to bed.

I called the GP on the stroke of 8.30am, when they open the phone lines, and was greeted with “your queue position exceeds 30 places”, so I booked an automated call-back and laid down to wait and snuggle with Suki. She has her teddy bear act off to a fine art these days, lying on one of my arms while I fuss and hug her with the other, pausing only occasionally to brush loose fluff off my face.

Mum was feeling very unwell, and very fretful, and very dementia-y: she was looping in 5 second increments, struggling with words, and getting increasingly distressed with every passing minute.

The Nurse Practitioner from the GP surgery called and arranged for a urine sample tube to be delivered, but filling it caused such distress – mum is suffering extreme soreness, and couldn’t get the lid off the tube, and couldn’t generate enough liquid to fill it when she did get it open, all of which caused her anxiety to swell to unmanageable proportions – that I told her to stop trying. Mum sat on my bed, sobbing, shaking, nearly incoherent.

I called the GP surgery back and told them I needed more help and a visit from a nurse. Said nurse arrived promptly, was kind and supportive, but – unfortunately for this purpose – male. He agreed that it wasn’t appropriate for him to do a physical examination on mum, but checked her vital signs to confirm that she doesn’t need urgent care, then departed to arrange for a female nurse to come round tomorrow.

(In the time between my phone call and the nurse’s arrival, mum managed to produce the necessary sample. It’s been sent off for testing, and will hopefully provide some answers to why mum is feeling so bad.)

With mum so unwell, and so miserable, I decided to cancel the flat viewing as it didn’t seem a good idea to leave mum alone. Our cleaner Lil very kindly offered to sit with mum while I went out but the timing didn’t quite work, so I rearranged the viewing with the – thankfully considerate – agency for Thursday afternoon.

Then I sat with mum, repeating “I know, mum” and “the nurse will be here tomorrow” so many times I think I’ll be repeating the phrases in my sleep. (I have already started thinking I hear mum saying “my head hurts” while I’m asleep at night, and startling awake to find I dreamed it.)

To prove she’s still her, mum threw out a wonderfully passive-aggressive “will you be doing food tonight, maybe?” when I didn’t jump up to start cooking at the stroke of 5pm. It’s as if I don’t provide her with food multiple times every single day. (Even if she turns her nose up at half of it. 🙄)

Thankfully I was able to do food that mum would eat, in the form of garlicky potatoes and chipolatas, with salad. Mum served up some salad, picked up her cutlery, looked sadly at her bowl and said “it’s not much food, is it?” I reminded her that the potatoes and sausages were behind her.

“Oops, silly me!” 🤣

And on that rare amusing note, goodnight. I’ll see you tomorrow, when hopefully mum will be less distressed and I will be less exhausted.