I’m often spoiled for choice on the topic of my daily blog:  today is no different.  I remember some kind soul on Talking Point suggesting I was: ‘like a butterfly on steroids’. I suppose that is one descriptor of my approach to being a Care Partner, along with others.  One thing I would suggest is that I’m not a Cabbage White, more of a Red Admiral.  There is no way I want to stick to the ‘prescribed diet’ for dementia: the shortcomings of which have been powerfully outlined by Kate Swaffer.

What I want to address this morning is Maureen’s point about the ‘Carers Invasion’. Her reality is that their presence is counterproductive to our independence. I need to measure that against another aspect of her reality, with a few extracts of some of her comments yesterday.  I’m using italics rather than quotation marks, as I’m aiming to capture the sentiments of her comments:

Clarice obviously doesn’t want the things in the bookcase: she’s left then here for me to take home.

I don’t want to speak to Clarice, she doesn’t come to see me.

I don’t like it here.  I want to go home but I don’t know where it is.

I need to contact my parents – they don’t know where I am.

None of my family phone me: they don’t know the number.

Why do I need to help with preparing food or cooking?

I don’t need other people to remind me when I need a shower.

It’s too cold to go out, my foot feels funny.

I’m not using that toilet: it’s one that men in here use!

Where is my bed, and where do you sleep?

I’ve had nothing to eat today: I’m going to get my son to take this up with the NHS.

You’re making too much noise; you’ll wake the others up.

Where are the children?

As I said in my post yesterday Maureen remains a highly intelligent woman.  However, when she is ‘acting out of character’ it is not always simple to comprehend her reality.  

My immediate response to dealing with the ‘Carers Invasion’ is to return to an earlier approach to repelling the attack.  What is wrong with accepting a bit of help with household chores, and shopping, at our age?  After all in a month’s time I will no longer be able to say I’m partly 70: I will be joining Maureen in being partly 80!  

We could also see the ‘ladies’ as welcome visitors, as all immediate family live over a hundred miles away.  Therefore, we can often go for weeks without anyone else in our house or days before a phone call from a family member.  So in short we recast ‘the ladies’ as adopted daughters who pop in regularly to see how the old folks are going on.  It’s up to us to knock them into shape!