June 17, 2008: at the end of my tether

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Carer Diary

June 17, 2008: at the end of my tether

Marianne Talbot cares for her mother who has Alzheimer's disease

It has all fallen apart. Despite my holiday, and mum’s being her cheerful self when I got back, ten days ago I reached the end of my tether.

The trigger was one of the carers saying gently that she didn’t think she could get mum up any more.

I have been dreading this. But it had to come. Getting mum up is truly awful. She hates to get up and, boy, does she let you know. It is difficult dressing her at the best of times because she no longer knows what goes where. It is often necessary, for example, to try to bend her arms for her so they will go into her cardigan, but you try bending someone else’s arms – jolly difficult.

Mum sees no reason to help either. In fact she often wants positively to hinder. However patient you are she’ll still kick you in the face as you try to put her socks on. Her look of malevolence and purpose as she does this is alarming in a mum who used to be so kind and well-intentioned.

Looking after mum has become a nightmare. A never-ending 24 hour nightmare. Even the wonderful people at Willows, mum’s day care centre, are getting cautious. Her incontinence makes life very difficult for them. Not least because she is so aggressive when they try to change her.

And Mum’s delight in Andrej had mutated into impatience. So Anita cannot bring Andrej any longer. This means Anita can’t come nearly as much as she used to. Setting up the care rota alone now takes two or three hours.

So when Carol dropped her bombshell I found my eyes filling with tears. Then I started to weep. I couldn’t stop. The weeping became sobbing. This wouldn’t stop either.

I didn’t know what to do. I started to ring the doctor. Then stopped because I thought ‘they’ll take mum away and put her in a home’. I rang a friend but her answering machine was on. Still I was sobbing.

Carol was devastated by my state, and felt terribly guilty. I tried to reassure her, but couldn’t as I became more and more desperate. I knew I had to do something. But I didn’t know what to do that wouldn’t make it worse.

In the end I rang Ian and Betty, my lovely uncle and aunt. When they answered I could hardly say anything through my sobs. Ian reacted immediately: ‘We’ll be there in three hours.’ he said.

He then rang my other uncle who lives nearer. When he and his wife arrived, an hour later, I was still sobbing. Then the emergency doctor arrived, made me swallow a tranquiliser, and rang social services.

No-one answered.

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