Tag Archives: Mum Has Dementia

The War Has Ended

17 Feb

On 1 August 2021 I wrote:

I know almost everyone else is on about day 62, but here I am posting day 32 of my fisherman smock project.

I started looking after Mum at the very beginning of this year. Within a week I knew something was wrong, and started reading up about early stages of dementia. She ticked every single box. But at that point it wasn’t immediately noticeable unless you knew her well…

She had a phone call with ‘that nice man’ from the Memory Clinic on 29th April and he diagnosed mixed dementia. It came as no surprise to me, but Mum was shocked. I reassured her that she was still the same person, still Mum, that Alzheimer’s was just a word, that we were going to keep making sure she was safe and happy. And that I loved her, whatever.

And all this is true.

Mum needs fulltime professional care now, and although she had always wanted to stay home till the day she died, she has settled into communal living well, not that it’s been terribly communal yet as she’s in covid isolation and not allowed out of her room.

When I saw her today she was annoyed that some of the young ones (the carers) don’t know the war has ended. She was also pleased we could play musical instruments because that saved us from the Nazis. Conversation is no longer straightforward or predictable, but that doesn’t seem to matter as much as I’d have thought. I can piece together some of the jigsaw pieces to make part of a picture. But not all of them. And that’s ok too. She knows I love her whatever.

I moved back home again last weekend, properly here to stay now, after living most of this year in Galloway. I’ll visit Mum at weekends, but not every weekend, and that feels ok too. I know she’s ok, she’s comfortable, she’s being looked after by a team of professionals who can do it so much better than I could.

All I need to do is love her. And she makes that so very easy.

I don’t often share images of Mum publicly, particularly more recent photos. But as I’m recalling the days before and after she got her diagnosis of dementia, I thought you might like to see these three pictures. The first two were taken in the week before her diagnosis, where she looks pretty relaxed. The third one, without a hat, was the day after her diagnosis. She seems so very lost to me. And she was always someone who could instill confidence in the most anxious of people.

As children, Mum told us we could all fly. If we really wanted to. And I have always believed this to be true. Mum told me, so it must be true. It astonished me when I learned (when I was MUCH older) that not everyone is brought up to believe they can fly.

I still can fly. If I really want to. Try it. You probably can too.

During those early months of 2021, when we all knew Mum’s world was unravelling, we talked about being able to fly one day. Mum looked sad, and said that just perhaps she wouldn’t be so good at it any more, perhaps her flying days were over. In my head she still flies, we fly together.

***

This series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; meanwhile her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

If you feel like a bit of cooking inspiration then you could check out my recipes here. I have some sad looking oranges in the fruit bowl so shall think about making the easy peasy and miraculous Orange and Almond Chocolatey Cake.

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It’s good to be home

12 Feb

On 30 July 2021 I wrote


MisoCat is not overly impressed that Puck bagged her favourite spot first.

On 1 August 2021 I wrote:

It’s good to be home. One in an occasional series.

At the end of July 2021 I returned home to our wee home in the Valley, aware that I needed to get used to a new normal. There was a lot of talk of “new normal” in 2021 – we were still living through the Covid pandemic, and knew that at some point we would have to start living some kind of a normal life again. None of us really knew what normal might look like; I knew that my new normal would not have my mother in it for that much longer. But for how long?

I had become used to life in Gatehouse, and I’d liked living in my hometown again. But it was good to know that I was able to put down anchor and enjoy the calm waters for a while, I had been unmoored since the beginning of January. I had been thinking about Mum for about 55 minutes of every waking hour. And now that professional carers were looking after her, I could let go of most of those thoughts.

I allowed myself to think that this was only a temporary reprieve, that Mum would inevitably deteriorate further and that she would die .. we had lost so much of the Mum we loved already, but I could not bear to think of a time when I wouldn’t have her in my life at all. Of course we had no crystal ball, so we had no idea how long we had with her, and what sort of life she would continue to live. We were thinking in terms of months, not weeks. But months, not years.

So 18 months later it feels like a sort of surprise that she is still alive. I won’t call it a blessing, because I know that Mum would never have called it a blessing to live as she lives now, unable to read, unable to draw, unable to make much conversation, unable to remember moments of her life that have given her pleasure, unable to remember who has loved her, unable to remember how many sisters she has, unable to decide what she’ll eat each day, unable to make a pot of soup, unable to write, unable to know if she has ever been happy. And she has been. So happy.

Mum sleeps much these days. Generally she seems happy to see me when I visit, and not distressed when I leave. She knows who I am. And I remind her of the remarkable woman she is, though often she is less interested than I would imagine she would be. Generally she is content to snooze while I sit and knit next to her.

It’s good that I enjoy knitting. In so many ways.

***

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, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; meanwhile her memories were being thrown around like so many pieces of jigsaw in a big box.

If you feel like a bit of cooking inspiration then you could check out my recipes here. This weekend I have started making bread again, after months of popping the ingredients in a the bread machine. I have several bread recipes, but the easiest by far is this one for No Knead Bread – it takes very little of your time, and tastes DELICIOUS. And there is proper joy at making your own bread.

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Holding on

7 Feb

On 26 July 2021 I wrote

How lucky am I? Thank you #InstaPal #crying

Sometimes holding on is precarious. Our fingertips go numb and we are so near the edge that even taking a single breath feels dangerous.

And sometimes holding on is just love.

I opened the post that morning and found this gift, from the artist. I had built up an Insta-friendship with Ruthie through our 100days projects and I’d bought some of her work, which I just adore. Finding this gift in the post was overwhelming, such a powerful message, and also such incredible kindness to give me that advice.

So, I kept holding on. We keep holding on.

And looking back, I see that a few days earlier I had messaged my friend Juliet to thank her.

SheWolffe: I thank you

Juliet: It was nothing

SheWolffe: You’ve held on to me some days. When I was quite unmoored.

Juliet: It is the very least I could do.

Juliet, who was 100 miles away, may say it’s the very least she could do, but we both know that it was so very much, and I will always, always, thank her for not letting me fall too far, for holding on.

And then a few days later, on 3 August 2021 I was back sitting on our glorious Terrace overlooking the Clyde Valley and I posted this pic and wrote this

Holding on

During this time, Mum was still in quarantine, after being in effective isolation for five weeks in hospital. She couldn’t read any more, and was utterly bored. She no longer got any pleasure from listening to an audio book, or the radio – her short term memory was smoosh, so she couldn’t follow a story from one sentence to the next. I wondered if she would be ‘better’ when she got out of quarantine, or if this was it? Was it too late?

We were all just holding on.

I hope that whatever is going on in your life, you are holding on. Holding on to beauty, to love, to joy. And holding on to those you love.

***

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, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; meanwhile her memories were being thrown around like so many pieces of jigsaw in a big box.

If you feel like a bit of cooking inspiration then you could check out my recipes here. Today I’m making a batch of Chinese Beef, and also Coconut Slice, neither of which feature in my recipes here, but probably should. Let me know if you’d like to see them. They are so very very tasty.

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Slow worms and personal catnip

1 Feb

On 25 July 2021 I wrote:

Local wildlife. And more local wildlife

Days were already easier, more predictable, less stressful. And much less tiring. We could start planning things for the future. And we could just stop for awhile and enjoy Galloway.

We still went back and forth to Mum’s house all the time (it’s just across the yard from my brother’s house where we were staying), and one day I discovered a slow worm squirming about on her kitchen floor. I, of course, thought it was a snake initially and instinctively was a bit squirked by it. But I knew I had to be a big brave girl and get it outside, whatever it was.

And now, having done the most minimal research into slow worms and their habits, I discover that they are found throughout mainland UK, though more in Wales and South West England. And, as I anticipated, they prefer more humid conditions – Mum’s house was dry and warm and the poor thing had some fluff caught on its face, no doubt picked up from an expedition under the fridge. It looked somehow too dry.

Should you ever wish to capture an unhappy slow worm on your kitchen floor, my patented method is to slide a piece of stiff paper under it and sort of scoop it into a bowl. If you don’t have a piece of stiff paper, I guess a newspaper might do. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll work it out. The slow worm was released into the bank, not a money bank, a grassy bank with various shrubs which were mostly slightly overgrown .. it seemed like the sort of place a slow worm might be happy enough, or at least happier than in Mum’s kitchen.

Talking of wildlife, my cat MisoCat has been really needy the last few days and has taken to jumping back up on the desk, and playing with the keyboard, or nudging my fingers off the keyboard. This morning she wanted to just sit on it. I’m not going to get much work done if she behaves like this all day – usually it means she’s hungry, but it’s not that just now, so perhaps she just wants attention. When I was having a tidy up in here the other day I found a bag of ‘herbs’ which I’m pretty confident is catnip, and judging by her reaction it definitely is – she is rolling about in the dried leaves, then trying to catch them and lick them, then more crazy rolling. It’s keeping her off the keyboard for now, and I’m hoping that her catnip come down will encourage her to sleep for the rest of the day. She’s an old lady cat now, and we keep thinking she hasn’t got long left, but looking at her antics now, perhaps she’s not that old after all. We are all just as old as we feel, eh?

So, work out what your personal catnip is and have more of it – if it makes you squeak with delight, then you’re winning at life. I’ll probably write more about mine some other day.

And Mum. There’ll be more of a Mum update in future posts.

***

Finally, 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, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; meanwhile her memories were being thrown around like so many pieces of jigsaw in a big box.

If you feel like a bit of cooking inspiration then you could check out my recipes here. I’ve been getting lots of carrots in my veg box lately, so have been making vats of carrot soup each week. I have a recipe for a carrot and lentil soup here, which I might update one day soon, as I’ve been experimenting with my pressure cooker (in a bid to use less energy) and honestly, it makes the best lentil soup!

Pimped up carrot soup

This blog started out as recipes, sometimes accompanied by wee stories, so I’ve got a back catalogue of tasty things to make. Do let me know if you’d like me to add more recipes in the future – I had an ambition to make a carers cookbook a couple of years ago… perhaps some day.

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