On 18 June 2021 I posted:
There are probably loads of hashtags that those nice folk at the Royal Highland Show would like me to use here. But I didn’t see them. So it’s just me and the NHS rainbow beltie.
#beltie#BeltieGalloway#ProudGallovidian
I could write so much about Mum’s stay at the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, but I’m really struggling to find the right words. And to be honest, I am struggling to recall exactly how it was, how things developed. My brain has done the sensible thing and is reluctant to let me re-live the detail of that time.
Looking back at messages between myself and my brothers, in those first days we were eagerly trying to work with the consultant and the other staff in the hospital to establish what we needed to do to get Mum home when it was safe to do so. There was no sense at all of timescale, nor of what criteria they would use to decide when she might be able to go home. There was, though, mention of Mum potentially staying in a cottage hospital for a while to transition between hospital and home. There was a super cottage hospital at Kirkcudbright, just 7 miles from home. But it was closed due to the Covid pandemic. We were already of the view that anything would be better than an orthopaedic ward in a large modern hospital where they seemed not to be set up to cope with a patient’s dementia. But there didn’t seem to be many options for us. In fact, initially, no other options, other than Mum staying at DGRI a bit longer.
Due to Covid, Mum was only allowed two designated visitors (and preferably only one at a time, and only one visit per day, as I recall), so my brother and I took turns, with one of us visiting one day, and the other the following day. The journey took about 45 minutes each way. We were allowed to stay with her for as long as we wanted, and after some negotiation, they conceded that we could spend time with Mum, then take a break downstairs and then return on the same day. Seeing Mum out of her familiar world for the first time in years, was heartbreaking. We can both confirm that it is possible to drive all the way home from the hospital, crying all the way.
Generally we would aim to be there over a mealtime. Mum’s right arm was in a stookie (that’s Scots for a plaster) and so she was unable to use her right hand, nor could she use her arms to push herself out of a chair if she needed to get up (for instance to go to the loo). She also was unable to use her ‘dancing partner’, the 4-wheeled walking frame that she needed to give her enough stability to be mobile.
On my second visit, I passed a nurse in the vast corridor as I walked down to Mum’s room. I asked her how Mum was, and was told that she was ok, but that she wasn’t really hungry, she’d left most of her lunch.
It was true, Mum had left most of her lunch. But not because she wasn’t hungry.
Mum had left most of her lunch because she was unable to eat it. She only had the use of one hand. She could not cut things up, she could not open plastic packets of cheese or of biscuits. She could not spread butter from a small fiddly packet on bread. A few months earlier Mum might have asked for help, or at least told someone of her difficulties. But Mum with dementia was not able to articulate her difficulties. And she did not want to be a bother to anyone, so she stayed silent, she just agreed with the nurse who cheerily enquired if Mum was not hungry after all.
This was not a place where Mum could thrive. I wondered if she could even survive there. She was desperately unhappy and just wanted to get back home.
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If you want to catch up on how we got to this point, this series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation.
Shewolfinthevalley 
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