Healthy living Blog
Carer Diary
June 24, 2008: a moment of calm
The search is on for a nursing home place for Marianne Talbot's mother, who has Alzheimer's disease
I have now been in my own home on my own for a whole week. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is. It is so calm. I had forgotten about calm.
I have been obsessively scrubbing, polishing, washing and tidying drawers. And when I haven’t been doing that I have been hoeing, raking, weeding, mowing and staking. The whole place is beginning to look like a showhome.
I have decided I really like my house. It is not the house I would have chosen for myself. I bought it because it was so suitable for mum. But over the years we have lived here I have made it my own. The garden especially gives me real pleasure.
The only things I am desperate to change completely – thanks to Fatcat and her peeing habits - are the carpets.
All this activity is hugely therapeutic. It is helping me to regain a sense of order and control. It is also keeping my mind off the places I don’t want to go.
I don’t, for example, want to think about mum. She is with Ian and Betty down on the Kentish coast. Judy, my sister, is with them. Mum loves the sea. It triggers memories (emotional ones at least) of her idyllic childhood in South Shields. I know she is safe and happy, and I don’t want to think further than that.
I also don’t want to think about the future. One thing is certain: I cannot look after mum any longer. About this there is no doubt in my mind. I have cared for my parents for the last twelve years, for the last five on a 24 hour basis, and I have had enough. I cannot – will not – do any more.
Obviously I have had to do some thinking about the future. For a start the crisis I described last week pushed the panic button at social services. Our care manager is desperately looking for somewhere for mum to go until a place becomes available for her at the nursing home nearby where I’d ‘like’ her to go.
The funding people are also pulling out all the stops. It looks as if mum might get 100% NHS funding. If she doesn’t we won’t be able to afford the nursing home I like and we’ll have to think again.
But even writing this is beginning to upset me. I can’t bear the thought of mum in a home. She will be confused and frightened. She will feel lost and alone. How can I do this to mum?
But how can I not?
So I refuse to think about it, and concentrate instead on ‘fussing’ Fatcat. She is missing mum something rotten.
More from Marianne Talbot
- Keeping Mum: Marianne Talbot's archive of care blogs
- Essential tips for carers
- Why carers need to take breaks
- Video: watch Marianne Talbot and Emma Soames talking about the reality of caring for someone else
Saga and caring
- Visit our new carers' section
- Saga Respite for Carers Trust
- Saga Long Term Care Funding Advice
- Chat to other carers at Saga Zone's caring forum
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Information on this site is for interest only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should consult your own doctor about any specific health concerns.
