It’s only 7 months since I first started embroidering Mum’s smock, and recording my progress each day with wee stories about our lives, her life. It feels like several lifetimes ago, and it’s interesting to re-live that time, and to recall how far we had already come in our journey with Mum’s dementia.
I am someone who likes to know facts, who feels better if I feel I have some knowledge and if I can put a name to things. So, having seen that Mum wasn’t quite her usual self when I started minding her in January 2021, I researched ‘early stages of dementia’. If this had been a tick box exercise, Mum seemed to tick all the boxes. A typical list of symptoms is here (this one from The Alzheimer’s Society)
- Memory problems
- Difficulties in thinking things through and planning
- Language and communication, for instance struggling to find the right word
- Poor orientation (this is perhaps the one that I never identified with Mum)
- Visual-perceptual difficulties
- Changes in mood or emotion
Soon afterwards I spoke to her wonderful GP, who was professional kindness itself and discussed what, if anything, we should do about this. The GP confirmed that this indeed did sound like it might be the early stages of dementia, and also confirmed that we didn’t need to do anything, or not straight away. I enquired what the advantages of a diagnosis might be, and established that they ‘might be’ easier access to some forms of support. I’m not sure I discovered precisely what that support would be, but I also wasn’t sure what further support we needed or whether anything would actually be supportive.
This was to become the constant quest – ‘what support do we need? what else would help at this stage?’
The GP had established that Mum was not in physical danger, that she was not so vulnerable that she could no longer live on her own, and had also asked after me and how I was coping, which kindness immediately set off my tears.
I cry most easily at times when I am trying to be brave and cope with stuff and people show me kindness.
A few weeks after this conversation with the GP I cried when the local postie (who I only really know to wave at through the window when he delivers the post at Mum’s) was kind, and understood when I explained that Mum may have dementia, and that really the junkmail wasn’t a good thing for her.
With hindsight, so much had already happened by early June, but so much more would happen in the coming weeks. But we will come to that.
So, on Day Two on the #100daysproject I wrote this:
Today wasn’t as chaotic and so all was a bit calmer. And I had a long meeting online at work where I could listen and participate and stab the smock at the same time.
Swallows have swooped in and around our lives every summer for as long as I can remember. They nest in the eaves of Mum’s car port, and they dive bomb us every time we come out the back door.
Embroidering this swallow feels a bit like stabbing skin for a tattoo. The back yoke of the smock will have several swooping swallows.
Spoiler alert: the back yoke only has two swallows and I think it’s unlikely I’ll add any more – if only because in general I only ever see one or two swallows swooping at a time.
I’d be forever grateful if you felt inspired to donate to Alzheimer Scotland, it doesn’t have to be much because I know that every single penny will make a difference. They have a 24 hour helpline to ensure that no-one in Scotland need go through dementia alone. This coming week, could you make a donation instead of paying for a cup of coffee (or some other small treat) one day?
If you want to start at the beginning of this story, go to Taking Smock of the Situation.
Shewolfinthevalley 
Kindness is hard to deal with sometimes. Thinking of you.x
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