Trials & Tribulations

It's been 11 days since I last posted and what an emotional time it's been. One thing that I have never mentioned here previously is that my Mother suffers from dementia. It started as simple short term memory loss but has progressed to confusion, poor recognition of people ( she thinks I'm her sister most of the time) and of her home. In recent weeks she has been wanting to go home and becoming aggressive when Dad won't take her, which of course is impossible when she is already there. Things came to a head while I was in Pembrokeshire and my father was having difficulty coping. This week I've had to arrange for her GP to visit and subsequently she was seen by a psychiatrist at home. She's now on some medication and has settled down. In fact she's quite happy and jolly though more confused than previously. It's not helped by the fact that she denies any problems and gets very angry and upset if anyone suggests her mental capacities are anything less than normal.

To complicate matters LB & I are taking my mother-in-law away on holiday to the Red Sea at the end of this week. She's too frail to holiday on her own and has been looking forward to this trip for months. Originally I wasn't going to go but as things are now I think I probably will. There are other family members who can support my father even though I seem to be the pivotal point of help. My mother-in-law has no one else who is close.

Talk about being torn in two directions! I'm a bit of a wreck at the moment worrying about the next few weeks in particular and the long term while also mourning the loss of my mother. The woman I knew hasn't been with us for a long time but this has really brought it home to me. The only good thing is that I don't have to cope with working as well. Retirement came at just the right moment!