Aching muscles, including heart
Started Pilates with my daughters, and the instructor hates me. Eldest daughters comment about her was ' I hate it when I look at a 70 year old, and wish I had her body'. This lithe geriatic seems to take my out-of-control body as a personal affront. For half the session she loomed over me digging her fingers into the soft, yielding expanse that is my stomach whilst exhorting me to tighten up from the top. Muscles that had retreated into anonymity decades ago were forced out of retirement, and grudgingly did their best to tighten hoping to protect the underlying vital organs. Youngest daughter commented on how relaxing she found the session, oh to be young and fit.
Visited two birth centres on the South Coast, lovely places, very helpful, informative staff. This week we will be 'feeding back' to the steering group and putting together the proposal for the Health Authority, it would be wonderful if we could open a facility like that for local women.
Mother-in-law moves into the nursing home on Monday. Yesterday we had a look around it, the staff were welcoming and the home seemed clean and organised. She is going to the 'Alzeimers suite' and Hubby found it upsetting, about 20 ladies all wandering aimlessly around. MIL appears to be in a worse state of decline than any we saw yesterday and has no idea that she is going into a residential home. I was kneeling down next to her trying to explain to her that this would be her new 'home' when she reached out and stroked my face saying 'You look very familiar. You have a face just like my daughter-in-laws.' How strange, that her memory allows her to remember a face, but not to assign an identity to it. Last night Hubby was very subdued. It's very difficult for him, I know he feels guilty about her going into a home but equally he accepts that his Step-Father can't cope any longer, and that it would be impossible for us to have her here. At least the place is only 5 minutes down the road, so he can make frequent visits and the G.P who covers the home has been our family doctor for 25 years so we trust him. The one blot on the landscape is that this is a months trial period, what happens if they feel they can't offer Mum the care she needs? Where do we turn then?
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(16.10.04 12:30) One of my elderly relatives has dementia and is in a specialist home. It's difficult at first but now she's been there well over a year and is as near to happy as anyone has seen her in years. The care is excellent and because everyone in there is suffering from similar problems it's an even playing field so to speak. They often have conversations with each other as though they've never met before - and they've lived next door to each other for 12 months - but I guess that's the beauty of it. They are with the peers, which must make life less, as opposed to more, confusing. Hope your MIL settles in Ok xx |
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(16.10.04 12:56) I'm sure MIL will be really be much better catered for where she is going, it's really just the idea of 'putting your Mother in a Home' which is playing around with Hubby's emotions. In other words - guilt. |
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(16.10.04 22:14) Alzeimers is a horrid condition. It is not a condition that can be managed easily by relatives from what I have been told and it can even be more unsettling for the sufferer to be in in a house where they do not recognise the other inhabitants than in a care home situation (if it is a specialits one). My ex boss's dad had the condition and what he told us about it was quite unsettling, specially because of the distress to the patient and to the relatives. I hope her deterioration is slow and you can find a home that will be good enough that it becomes obvious she is better looked after there than she would ever be at home. |
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(18.10.04 19:34) it is a worry for an adult to perceive their parent not acting as crisply as they used to. my mother now occassionely does something or says something out of kilter and my sister and i look at each other and wonder. sometimes we voice it aloud, then remind ourselves that we say and do things that we know later are out of wack. modern media bring to the fore that many families have problems, it isnt hidden away any more and that is a good thing, but even so i really dont know how we would cope if our mum went the way of your mil. my thoughts are with you kiku |