Healthy living Blog

Carer Diary

March 19, 2008: interviewing carers

Marianne Talbot

This week, Marianne Talbot, who cares for her mother with Alzheimer's disease, goes looking for 'another Anita'

I have spent the week interviewing carers. Last week I fielded application forms, and the week before, telephone calls in response to my advertisement. Anyone would think I had nothing to do other than think about mum’s care.

But if I find a carer who does the trick it will be worth it.

I already have a carer without whom I could not cope. Anita started as a part-time secretary. But she was soon putting more time into mum and the secretarial stuff fell by the wayside.

Anita is Croatian, she has a PhD in philosophy and she is a qualified nurse. She stands on no ceremony with me, telling me off for leaving lights on and for failing to recycle things properly.

She teases mum and takes no nonsense, but mum seems happy to put up with it. Mum seems to enjoy it. Anita can even give mum a bath.

Anita is a complete star.

One of Anita’s key charms, certainly for mum, is her two-year-old son, Andrej. Andrej is a delight. He is the opposite of shy, and he adores mum. I encourage Anita to bring Andrej whenever she wants.

When they arrive, Andrej darts in crying ‘Lesley? Lesley? Where is Lesley?’ If she is still in bed or at daycare he keeps asking for her until she arrives. Then the two of them collude in driving Anita completely mad.

They are exhausting. Last time they were together they found a squeaky toy mouse, discarded by the cats (far too grand to play with toys). Mum and Andrej were tossing mouse between them with gay abandon and screams of delight.

As I left it seemed unlikely Anita was going to get either of them to bed for hours. But she was still smiling.

I have tried to persuade Anita to leave her husband (sorry Sinisha) and move in. But she’s not having it. So I need another carer for when Anita is on holiday or can’t do a shift.

My advertisement attracted lots of replies. A few of them I didn’t take to the application stage: if I couldn’t understand them, how were they going to work with mum? Many to whom I sent a form didn’t return it: advanced Alzheimer’s deters even professional carers.

But I have been pleased by those I have interviewed. There are some really nice people around. Often they are people who started to care for a family member, discovered they were good at it and got a lot out of it, and have continued.

With any luck I might be able to report next week that I have found someone who has a chance of being a second Anita.

More from Marianne
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