In a World Gone Mad: Wednesday 13 May 2020...1

Wednesday 13 May 2020

And we have another one.  Are there any dementia sufferers out there in need of a carer? Please add your name below and Max and I will add you to our care list. This is a free of charge service, but I’m ashamed to say, you will get care that is always low on patience and occasionally borderline abusive and bullying—but only if you’re as argumentative, aggressive, and cantankerous as Arthur.  Having cared for many people in my lifetime as a profession—and again I make the distinction that it is something a million miles away from having them snotting and musucing all over your own home— I don’t believe there is any such thing as a sweet old person—they are a myth like unicorn and bank accounts with money in them.

We are in the midst of lockdown. As well as Arthur, we have been doing what we can, at a distance, for Ivor and Joan, until such times as Ivor dies and then we have to decide what is going to happen to Joan who is dependent on him. Because Ivor is dying from cancer, he is in the highest infection risk bracket and we take extra care to always stay backside of the wall. But we do their shopping and any washing that Joan hasn’t managed to get done.

This week Bojo has loosened some of the restrictions. If I’m correct, you can leave town if you have a good enough reason for doing so.

So, Joan and Ivor are a well-oiled cog, she keeps perfect home and bakes a lot and he drives.  Prior to his diagnosis right in the middle of lockdown, they were the primary carers for Joan’s sister, Pam in her nineties, who lives forty minutes away in a beautiful village called Arnside. Because of the distance, Pam with dementia, has carers going in three times a day, and twice a week, Ivor and Joan went through to pick up and drop off her washing and take her shopping.

Nobody has been to see Pam since the Covid19 outbreak, and she’s had no contact other than from her carers. Pam is a lady of means and her ten hours a week amount to eighteen hundred pounds a month in care fees. Ivor and Joan have always kept an eye on things to see that she gets decent care—there have been issues, mainly with the carers going in and out in ten minutes, rather than giving her the full call that they pay for. It happens all the time.

For two months Joan has been working herself into a frenzy about Pam and how she’s coping. It’s one stress they don’t need. The upshot is that she has begged Max to drive through and see if she’s okay. I have no problem with this at all, if it puts Joan’s mind at rest. We are taking washing and picking washing up, we’ll fill her freezer and do some shopping for her if she needs it. I’ll check her care records and we’ll wait to see her carers to get some background on how she is. And we will check her kitchen and bathroom to see that they are being kept clean.

I have concerns.

Pam is in the highest bracket for cross contamination. Her carers will be going into, on average, sixteen other houses a day. Some of these people will have people who see them. We have all had Covid19 and therefor have some immunity to it—but I’m concerned about the risk involved of going into somebody’s home for the first time since the beginning of February. I have followed the rules to the letter and have never broken them, despite catching the disease from Arthur in the first couple of weeks and before lockdown was decided. I am happy to help this lady, especially if it helps Joan. It’s a done deal. However, I feel odd about it. I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to visit people and I don’t want people anywhere near us and our safe bubble. It works and, apart form Arthur and my lack of work, I’m finding lockdown easy. It doesn’t bother me staying home and not seeing anybody as long as the dog gets her run.

I’m worried that when we’ve done it once, Joan will expect us to take over her twice weekly visit. It’s forty minutes each way and however long it takes while we’re there.  I’ve never met this lady and Max hasn’t seen her for over ten years. It’s looking after a stranger. I’m fine, I huff and puff and take my frustration out by moaning at Max, and in here at my diary, but I don’t know how much more Max can take on.

Pam is Joan’s sister and due to her dementia, she is always accusing Joan of stealing from her. She is a stranger to us and we’re visiting without any professional authority or protection against accusation.

We have a lot on our plate. We have Arthur and we do what we can for Joan and Ivor. Yesterday Max was called out to help and when he got there, he found it was to move some heavy planters from one side of the garden to the other. The day before he picked up an ‘urgent’ prescription, and today it was to get a few items of shopping for them that they couldn’t manage without, lemonade, crisps and weed killer. Joan doesn’t get it and is inventing reasons to get Max to talk to her over the wall because she’s frightened and lonely. Ivor isn’t getting any care for his cancer other than hormone tablets and she’s coping with his depression and mood swings on her own—they are known side-effects of the tablets. He’s spending much of the day sleeping and although he’s there, Joan’s left alone for the first time in her life. She’s obsessing about Pam and feels guilty for abandoning her.

Max is amazing. He is the most optimistic, happy person I’ve ever known. He’s always laughing and nothing much gets him down. He tells terrible jokes. He’s a glass half full bloke. The last thee weeks, he’s been flat. Lack of sleep is taking its toll and he’s lost some of his bounce. We still deal with Arthur on a, `humour is best` basis, as much as possible. Max will do anything for anybody and when it comes to any member of his family, he has no ability to say no to anything. He can’t stand to see his mum upset about Pam, so we’re taking her on as well. No doubt if we had an empty bedroom, she’d be coming home with us. I’m worried about him.

Arthur will have to come with us. I only need to be in for a few minutes to give her bathroom and kitchen a clean if they need it and then I can sit in the car with him. It leaves Max alone in the house with her and wide open to any of her delusions. I’d be looking forward to a drive out with my man if we didn’t have Arthur. We can’t risk leaving him with Andy because he’s been aggressive with him the last few weeks and Andy doesn’t have the coping mechanisms that we do. We leave him with Andy once a day to run the dog sometimes—usually, if he’s that way out, we have to take Arthur with us, but when we leave him, we always have a phone with us and we’re never more than five minutes away if he needs us. It’s all good fun—and what’s one more?

Max bought more picture hooks today to put Arthur’s prints up again.  The hammer had gone out of his tool cupboard with a load of other stuff, but I wasn’t really listening. It wasn’t a long search, gone are the days of searching the house for half an hour for keys, dog lead, shoes, jackets, and any number of other things that go missing. First stop is straight to Arthur’s pockets for small items and under his mattress for larger ones.  The hammer was under his mattress, no wonder he doesn’t sleep. Max came out of Arthur’s room brandishing said hammer.

‘Oh, please let me.’

But the spoilsport wouldn’t let me beat his father with it.

I’ve just been up to the bathroom, it was occupied, of course it was. Every time I go to the bathroom, he’s in there—every damned time. Tomorrow’s headline will probably read: In a Bizarre freak occurrence, a South Lakes woman has ripped a toilet from the wall and used it to bludgeon to death a frail, defenceless old man of 87 suffering from dementia.