The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me by Slevin Martin

Author:Slevin, Martin [Slevin, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monday Books
Published: 2013-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

15.

First Home

PAINFUL AND DIFFICULT decisions tend not to go away just because we find excuses to avoid making them. You can put the event off many times, but one day you have to face it.

Our visit to that first nursing home had started the ball rolling, so to speak, but we were a good deal shocked by the place and we had put off the day when mum would have to move in there. We were supposed to have contacted the social worker after our visit to let her know if we wanted the spare bed, but we had failed to do so, and we assumed that now, several weeks later, there would be no spaces available. Mum was getting more and more forgetful at home, and simply couldn’t be trusted to be by herself safely any more.

Heather worked as well, so it was just mum and Bruno in the little bungalow for most of the day. Locking her in there was both inhumane and dangerous.

We were reminded of the nursing home when the telephone rang one Friday evening. It was the social worker.

‘I was just calling to see if you had made any arrangements regarding mum yet?’ she asked cheerily; she made it sound as though it was her mum we were discussing.

‘No, not yet.’

‘Only, the reason I wanted to speak to you is because another vacancy has arisen there...’

Her words trailed away. I wondered who had died to make that space available.

‘Okay, I’ll speak to my partner and get back to you.’

‘If you would, please… These beds are very scarce these days, you know.’

She rang off.

That night I spoke to Heather when mum had gone to bed.

Heather shrugged her shoulders. ‘I was shocked by how bad some of those old people were. By bad I mean, how far gone…’

‘I know what you mean,’ I said.

‘I felt so sorry for Fred,’ she said.

‘I liked Alice, myself,’ I replied, and we both laughed.

‘Your mum wouldn’t like Alice,’ observed Heather. ‘I’ve never heard your mum swear.’

I thought about it. ‘Neither have I,’ I said.

‘I wonder if all care homes are the same?’ asked Heather.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Maybe we should wait and speak to the social worker again? Maybe there are some other places we could go and look at.’

Heather was nodding enthusiastically. ‘I’ll speak to her again tomorrow.’

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.