Healthy living Blog

Carer Diary

August 28, 2008: mum moves into a home

Marianne Talbot and her mother

Marianne Talbot's mother, who has advanced Alzheimer's disease, moves into a nursing home after living with Marianne for five years

Today mum moves into a nursing home.

It happened so suddenly! On Tuesday I was told that we were eligible for 100% NHS funding. I was simultaneously warned not to feel too secure. If mum becomes bed-ridden, and therefore easier to care for, she will lose this money. Oh dear. Nothing like a bit of insecurity to keep you on your toes, is there?

Next I was told that we had a place in our chosen care home. It costs £900 per week. More than Eton!

I even got to choose mum’s room. This isn’t normal, but the new extension has several rooms vacant. I chose a large, light, airy room at the end of a wide corridor. It has a pink carpet and pinky-grey curtains, large French windows opening onto a terrace, another window looking onto a grassy slope, and a huge sparklingly clean en-suite. It is delightful! I wouldn’t mind moving in myself.

I'd have to change the loo seat though. It is an alarming bright red.

The home has a music therapy room (mum adores banging drums), a 'sensory room', with low music and coloured lights (good, I'm told, for when people are anxious), and gardens secure enough to allow people to wander. The residents seem happy. I saw one member of staff clasp a resident to her bosom and give her a smacking kiss.

It is even possible they'll take Fatcat - now that really would be something. I have said I'll pay for her keep and for a cat flap.

I spent yesterday sewing in name tapes, briefing the chef on Coeliac disease, and personalising mum’s room. Mum’s blanket is on her bed, the portraits of the four of us are on the wall opposite, her graduation photograph is next to the dressing table, and there are wedding and family photographs on her windowsill. I shall keep her supplied with flowers from the garden and soft fruit for her bowl.

I have been making a collage of photographs and writing a potted history for her door.

I feel very strange. I am pleased with the home, its delightful manager, and the fact we shan’t (for the moment) have money worries. I have cheering fantasies about mum’s settling happily. I imagine her coming to tea with me, and taking her for walks around the gardens.

But I am warning myself that even if mum does eventually settle the transition period is likely to be painful. I hate the thought she might wake up alone and frightened, and I am haunted by visions of her traumatized face when she last spent time in a home.

But this time there is no alternative. Keep your fingers crossed for us...

More from Marianne Talbot
Saga and caring
More on nursing homes
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