On Tuesday as I made my way to meet staff at our local Alzheimer’s Society I got a feeling of déjà vu as I passed a familiar bus stop.  As I stood for a moment I remembered waiting, with my heart in my mouth, to be taken to a Secondary School where I spent many a day.  I recalled those moments of panic wondering what I was letting myself in for to earn my £145 a day.  Would it be one of those days where they would be at me for all five periods or would I manage to find a peaceful haven for the odd twenty minutes?

As I moved on towards my destination I smiled as I thought of some of the characters from my days as a  Supply Teacher and wondered what they were doing as Christmas loomed.  I also thought how fortunate I was to have been in their company and reflected on what I had learned from the almost inevitable hostilities.  Two things came to mind firstly I could never predict what would happen as soon as I entered the school premises.   In fact, I  rarely knew from one day to the next be which classes or subject I would be expected to teach.  Secondly, what a wonderful training ground Supply Teaching was for a Care Partner dealing with dementia: tales of the unexpected personified.  Unfortunately, there is one significant difference: this is a Labour of Love and there is rarely any time off!

I have managed to squeeze in a few hours of rest in the last 24 hours.  Maureen appears to be sleeping peacefully at the moment.  It was well after midnight before there was any respite from last night’s presentation -possibly driven by the full moon.  I wouldn’t even chance to predict how today will go and I will take the bus this morning to meet our social worker: ‘stealing’ Maureen’s car only fuels the fire of dementia!

Footnote: I won’t be going anywhere this morning as Maureen is begging me not to leave her.  I’m hoping YouTube will lift her spirits and  Lesana and Lea are on as I post.

Maureen is time travelling this morning: reliving some unhappy childhood memories.   She is replaying her mother’s disappointment that her father moved the family back to Nottingham from Cleethorpes into a house that she had never seen before.  I have had an hour of ‘why are we here; why didn’t you involve me in choosing this house; why did we move from Coventry?’  It is one of those occasions when nothing I  say can shift her perspective so I have made her cups of tea and I’m now going to leave her to rant to herself.  Hopefully, she will tire shortly so we can both get some further sleep and wake up at a reasonable hour to our lives together in 2016.

There’s no peace from dementia and we are still awake three hours later listening to YouTube.  This one always calms things down:

Maureen  is now singing along with Boney M to this one:

Hope we can catch up on some sleep later!

Maureen has had a difficult night.  Her dreams have been vivid and frightening.  She has seen and heard things in the room we have been sleeping in that have scared the living daylights out of her.  This is hardly the restful night I needed before this morning’s meeting with Senior Officers of NAViGO.  Just to add to my difficulties my new Wireless Printer has lost its connection so I will need to take my Lap Top to the meeting.

I clearly gave Maureen a lovely memory earlier this morning.  She was sleeping in the chair and stirred as I came into the room and said: ‘it’s GrandDad’ and gave me a kiss on the cheek.  I have often heard her speak so well of her grandparents so this case of mistaken identity didn’t worry me and reminded me of this song:

I remember a West Indian friend of mine once saying: ‘I don’t care what they call me as long as they don’t call me late for dinner’.  As Maureen’s dementia progresses I don’t worry who she thinks I am as long as she feels safe in my company.