I suppose the disadvantage of having a tough old lady as a mother is that she is tough to deal with, and my mother is a case in point.
As I mentioned in a recent blog after her fall and 19 hours on the floor she went into a local old people's residential home for what was meant to be 4 weeks respite care. She was in the end asked to leave early - literally expelled by the home, for bad behaviour. I can almost smile about it now, but it was very difficult to see the funny side of the experience while it was going on.
I gave her an old mobile phone of mine with a new prepaid SIM so she could keep in touch whilst 'inside'. She failed totally to master how to use it. I was phoned several times in the middle of the night (3 am) when she mistook the phone for the TV remote control!
If that was all then it would have been a breeze, but she also invented a range of invisible friends who dropped in and took her off on adventures (despite the fact that she could barely walk): there was the handsome man and his three naughty children, the three tall men who stood guard outside her window (she was on the first floor, and there was no balcony) and the three Sikhs who came into her room and made themselves at home on her bed (my mother spent over 25 years in India, so the appearance of the Sikhs was quite welcome to her and fairly normal). I wonder if it is significant that all of these apperitions appeared in threes. Then there was the man singing next door. He sang all day and part of the night, but only my mother could hear him. This was a little disturbing, particularly when she struck up conversations with these people when you were trying to talk to her or when she got cross when having shouted "Mind the baby!" at you as you walked across the room when you replied "There is no baby".
Even this would have been OK, but she refused to go down and mix with the other residents "My legs hurt too much" (but not too much when I offered to take her out to the pub), or "I don't want to sit with all the old people" and can I remind you my mother has just celebrated her 87th birthday.
No, what did it for the home was her vendetta with the night nursing staff. She refused to cooperate in any way shape or form with them after 3 weeks of being as good as gold. She refused to go to bed, then she tried to sleep on the floor, she refused to take her medicine and then she trashed the room - twice. So when I went to visit her a with a little over a week go to go, the manageress of the home asked me to remove her as soon as possible. Fortunately I had anticipated this (as a result of a series of very late night phone calls) and my oldest brother who was already scheduled to come up from Devon and look after her with his wife agreed to come up early and get her out of trouble.
As soon as she got home the invisible friends disappeared and she was as good as gold, for a while...
But now she is kicking up a fuss because we are trying to get her to face the facts that she needs to either have modifications made to her house so that she can live there in comfort (like a stair lift, and a walk-in shower), or move to somewhere more suitable, or find a more suitable residential home.
Everyone, her doctor included, has said she cannot go on as she was and while she agrees with the idea that something needs to be done she refuses to make any decision as to what. For example, her preferred option is to move into a more suitable house, closer to the centre of town, with level ground for her to walk on (she currently lives on a hill), but when anyone says something like, "Good, then lets get the ball rolling and put this house on the market" she 'throws a wobbly' and has palpatations at the thought of an estate agent coming round and valuing the house and the thought that everyone in her road will know her house is for sale.
Today she has just had a row with my brother who is still looking after her because he was trying to get her to face these facts and make a decision... and I am going on Sunday to relieve him and will be staying with my mother for 3 days - "Oh, Goodie!"
As I mentioned in a recent blog after her fall and 19 hours on the floor she went into a local old people's residential home for what was meant to be 4 weeks respite care. She was in the end asked to leave early - literally expelled by the home, for bad behaviour. I can almost smile about it now, but it was very difficult to see the funny side of the experience while it was going on.
I gave her an old mobile phone of mine with a new prepaid SIM so she could keep in touch whilst 'inside'. She failed totally to master how to use it. I was phoned several times in the middle of the night (3 am) when she mistook the phone for the TV remote control!
If that was all then it would have been a breeze, but she also invented a range of invisible friends who dropped in and took her off on adventures (despite the fact that she could barely walk): there was the handsome man and his three naughty children, the three tall men who stood guard outside her window (she was on the first floor, and there was no balcony) and the three Sikhs who came into her room and made themselves at home on her bed (my mother spent over 25 years in India, so the appearance of the Sikhs was quite welcome to her and fairly normal). I wonder if it is significant that all of these apperitions appeared in threes. Then there was the man singing next door. He sang all day and part of the night, but only my mother could hear him. This was a little disturbing, particularly when she struck up conversations with these people when you were trying to talk to her or when she got cross when having shouted "Mind the baby!" at you as you walked across the room when you replied "There is no baby".
Even this would have been OK, but she refused to go down and mix with the other residents "My legs hurt too much" (but not too much when I offered to take her out to the pub), or "I don't want to sit with all the old people" and can I remind you my mother has just celebrated her 87th birthday.
No, what did it for the home was her vendetta with the night nursing staff. She refused to cooperate in any way shape or form with them after 3 weeks of being as good as gold. She refused to go to bed, then she tried to sleep on the floor, she refused to take her medicine and then she trashed the room - twice. So when I went to visit her a with a little over a week go to go, the manageress of the home asked me to remove her as soon as possible. Fortunately I had anticipated this (as a result of a series of very late night phone calls) and my oldest brother who was already scheduled to come up from Devon and look after her with his wife agreed to come up early and get her out of trouble.
As soon as she got home the invisible friends disappeared and she was as good as gold, for a while...
But now she is kicking up a fuss because we are trying to get her to face the facts that she needs to either have modifications made to her house so that she can live there in comfort (like a stair lift, and a walk-in shower), or move to somewhere more suitable, or find a more suitable residential home.
Everyone, her doctor included, has said she cannot go on as she was and while she agrees with the idea that something needs to be done she refuses to make any decision as to what. For example, her preferred option is to move into a more suitable house, closer to the centre of town, with level ground for her to walk on (she currently lives on a hill), but when anyone says something like, "Good, then lets get the ball rolling and put this house on the market" she 'throws a wobbly' and has palpatations at the thought of an estate agent coming round and valuing the house and the thought that everyone in her road will know her house is for sale.
Today she has just had a row with my brother who is still looking after her because he was trying to get her to face these facts and make a decision... and I am going on Sunday to relieve him and will be staying with my mother for 3 days - "Oh, Goodie!"
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