Conversations with mother (44)

The neighbour phoned me Monday morning because the carer hadn’t been able to get in, so neighbour let her in. They found that mother had had a wee crisis in the night, and all I can say is thank god for the underfloor heating in her flat. She was nice and warm when the ambulance arrived. Lying neatly beside the bed, fast asleep. Her call button (emergency Care–Call company who are brilliant) was out of reach. (She got a telling off from the ambulance guy for that. It's supposed to be round her neck 24/7.)

I spoke to the ambulance crew and got over there. She was still a bit slurry but all vital signs were good including heart and blood pressure so everybody agreed there was no need to take her to hospital. And she didn’t want to go either.

A bit slurry because of last night’s sleeping pill together with too much red wine. Both wine and pills have now been removed and pills are where only carers can find them. So after lunch she went back to bed “for a nap” which was really to sleep it off, between you and me. She woke around 6 pm and I’d ordered Chinese to be delivered. She got up and came to the table.

Why are we having Chinese? she asked. (It happens to be one of our favourite foods.)

Because we need dinner and I haven’t got out to the shops yet.

Dinner?  Which she means is evening meal.

Yes this is dinner.

Oh I thought it was breakfast. So it’s evening.

Yes.

I’ve had a lovely night’s sleep.

A few minutes later she asks What did the Chinese say, when you ordered. Were they surprised?

Why do you ask that? (Knowing full well what she means.)

Well, ordering it at this time of day.

I explain again.

(Pause while we had our won ton soup and watched the telly.)

I said the carer would be there at 8.

That’ll be a first, she snorted.

This is the evening carer. (It was too late to cancel her and besides I wanted her there to reinforce the idea that it was night time, and to show her where we were going to hide the pills from now on.)

But the carer doesn’t get here until quarter past nine.

That’s the morning carer.

This happened more in the next few minutes in varying formats and then she decided to go back to bed. I said – This is you going to bed for the night.

Oh, she said. (She really didn’t sound convinced.)

Five minutes later, being tucked in, she said

Thank you for getting my day off to a good start. Who’s doing my lunch?