Healthy living Blog

Carer Diary

Feb 13, 2008: could I face putting Mum in a home?

Marianne Talbot

Marianne Talbot, who cares for her mother with Alzheimer's disease, starts to tentatively explore her options for the future

Things are getting back to normal. The antibiotics, plus the one-to-one care I have been giving mum, are working. She is smiling, joking, and much more relaxed. The virago of the last few weeks is no more.

But it was exhausting. I am a worn out rag, and my week’s holiday is a distant memory (what would it have been like if I hadn’t had it though?). I am now tackling the huge backlog of work that has built up. But I must find time to think about the future.

That things can get so scary so quickly is extremely worrying. I can’t take many more months like the last. When mum is herself caring for her is a doddle...well, a doddle compared to when she isn’t herself. She’s so cheerful and good natured that I want to do things for her - it feels easy even if it isn’t.

But I am obviously a fair-weather carer. When she’s as she has been recently, caring is a nightmare. Mum treated me as an enemy, as someone she needed to fight, someone who wanted to hurt her. It was truly dreadful.

It is humbling to realise that many carers deal with this all the time. I don’t know how they manage. No-one cares in order to be appreciated, but not being appreciated, indeed, being treated as a threat, is just the pits. It wouldn’t be human not to ask why one is bothering.

Good question that. Why does one bother? It would be much easier to shuffle people into a home, where they’d be out of sight and out of mind. So many people seem to think this is the obvious answer that I think they think I am a mug for looking after mum.

As I see it I have three options: (i) I implement – less clumsily – the care package made possible by the direct payments, (ii) I get a live-in carer (iii) I find a home.

The first is beginning to seem reasonable now mum is back to normal. Two weeks ago it seemed impossible given mum’s distraught state.

The second would mean my home really wouldn’t be my own. And I’d lose my study so the carer would have somewhere to sleep.

The third...well, the third. Could I put mum in a home? I have been allowing myself, tentatively, mentally, to explore the freedom it would give me, but it feels dangerous. I know my own capacity for guilt, especially where mum is concerned.

But I am only 52, and I have a life to live. So far I have lived it consistently with caring for mum. But can this continue?

I should be interested in your advice...

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