Dementia: Y S Phone Home!

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Image result for Please Phone Home PictureAs I I hadn’t E T at my disposal I rang  Maureen’s Youngest Son at 10 ‘o’ clock last night and it did the trick.  He phoned back and his mum gradually reduced her pleas to be taken home so she could look after her aged parents faded.  A short while later she dropped off to sleep on the sofa; exhausted from a hectic couple of hours.  I took to the spare bedroom and Maureen woke me to tell me how relieved she was that she had found me.

My earlier attempts to solve the ‘take me home’ crisis had fallen on stony ground.  A late night drive around Cleethorpes and Grimsby had not done the trick.  On our arrival back home Mrs Dementia was out in force with threats and accusations that I would be in real trouble once the authorities were aware of how I had kept her against her will in a strange house.

Maureen was very frightened that I had left her when I took a bathroom break early this morning.  I’m hoping that a pain relieving lozenge and a cool drink will sooth her sore mouth so she might get a little more rest. The chronic condition needs further diagnosis if we are ever going to find a solution.

Last night was a disappointing end to a positive weekend.  Maureen had been in great form on Saturday trying to help her sister who was in a sorry state.  It is possible that hearing her sister talk about her own memory problems and seeing her in such a pitiful state has shocked her – creating a focus on her own shortcomings.  Visiting her little sister in Nottingham was always a risk and may have been a bridge too far on this occasion.

Girl Monday will be her in a couple of hours and I will seek her counsel about recent events.  She is unique: she understands dementia and knows Maureen.  I also have the luxury of being able to chat things over with my Admiral Nurse and staff at the local Alzheimer’s Society if Maureen remains unsettled.

NB: From now on I’ll print of my posts and add them to the Girl’s (Carers) daily briefings.

4 thoughts on “Dementia: Y S Phone Home!”

  1. Re: “My earlier attempts to solve the ‘take me home’ crisis had fallen on stony ground.”

    I know you know this, but there are no “solutions” to the “take me home” crisis. There are only bridges/paths/tunnels/techniques to get you through to the other side each time the crisis occurs, and different tools work at different times and the “crisis” will keep recurring over and over until someday maybe that phase will pass or maybe it will not. But that doesn’t mean you are failing. Rather, it means you are succeeding each time you get to “the other side.” So you are achieving many many many small successes each day, not a multitude of failures. It’s hard to remember that sometimes.

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