It’s been some months since I wrote a Demetria Diaries posts, we are still muddling along. My dad has employed a carer from an agency to come in twice a week for my mum. Unfortunately Mum won’t really allow her to do much but Hannah, as the lady is called, does wash her legs and sometimes Mums hair.

Things have deteriorated considerably in the past couple of months. Dad had a corneal graft some years ago and his yearly check up at Kings Hospital in London was approaching. We arranged hospital transport and agreed that, as happens every year, I would sit with Mum while he went to the appointment. When I arrived at my parents house my Dad looked so ill and frail that I couldn’t let him go into London without me so my lovely daughter literally ran round to their house to stay with Mum while I went in the ambulance. Dad has had some stomach trouble lately but a CT scan and blood tests haven’t found a cause for this. The clinicians decided Dad is too frail for a colonoscopy. On this particular day he looked pale and exhausted.

Kings is a huge hospital to navigate and we were kept waiting for hours. The eye clinic receptionist seemed annoyed that we were keeping the return hospital transport waiting and kept asking irritably when we would be finished – as though we had any control over the situation. You would think that the reception staff would take one look at Dad and wonder if it was really reasonable to keep an elderly patient, who had travelled a long way, waiting for hours after their appointment time. I could see Dad was becoming quite anxious about not being able to get home so I was pleased I had gone along with him. I told him we could pay for a taxi if need be. Eventually the consultant saw Dad, said all was well with his eyes and we made our way to the hospital transport hub. We were told nothing was available as it was so now after 6pm but that they would organise a taxi, at no cost to us. While we were waiting a couple from our village came over to say hello, what a coincidence. I didn’t know them but they recognised Dad and asked how he and Mum are getting on. I was hoping they would offer us a lift home but they, like me, didn’t fancy driving in London and had taken the train. Dad was too tired to walk to the station and take a long train journey, it is SO many stops. Eventually our transport, a shiny black Jaguar SUV, arrived and after a slow drive through City traffic we got home. My daughter said my mum had been a bit of a handful but she managed admirably.

Since then Mum has spent most days asleep in her armchair waking only to eat and, if she gets there in time, use the loo. She is always cold, the central heating is permanently on and she is wrapped in a fleece blanket. Mum does not welcome visitors and continually tells anyone other than Dad to go home.

My parents’ lovely next door neighbour died in his care home after a bout of pneumonia, he was ninety four and had advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Dad was very upset by this, Mum oblivious. This mild mannered, gentle man had to go into care after becoming aggressive towards his wife, what a cruel ending for him.

Mum has a nasty eye infection at the moment complete with an enormous stye. Her third infection is as many months, the GP has visited her at home a few times now. She continually says she wants to see her father who died in 1974. She is unsure of who I am. The speed of her decline is accelerating. Despite this, she gets up every day and gets dressed in smart trousers and her usual little T shirt and cotton cardigan. I have seen first hand the enormous physical and mental effort that this takes but my parents are not the sort of people who have ever sat around in their night clothes They just get on with things without complaining. They eat breakfast at a table my dad has laid with a cloth, table mats and cups and saucers. Dad says he sometimes feels he is running a hotel for one. I really admire them both. I think my Mum is still with us because of the devotion and care my Dad has showed her.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash