Monday 18 January 2016

Some good news...


...at last!

We had a phone call from one of the care homes here in our town a couple of weeks back to say that they now had a vacancy ~ what a relief that was!  Adrian and I had already visited the home previously, but obviously his sister needed to see the home too.  She felt, like us, that it would be a good home for mother-in-law to move to, and the place was accepted.  We all thought that it would probably take at least a couple of weeks or so for the move to go ahead, as it needed to be cleared with social services, etc, plus notice had to be given at the home she was currently living in.

Well, the upshot of it all was that no sooner had the place been accepted and MIL's care worker contacted, than a date had been arranged for the transfer!  I must admit that we were very surprised at how quickly things moved along but on reflection, I suppose that in effect MIL was "blocking" a bed in a nursing care home when she has actually been assessed as needing the highest level of residential care.

In the end, MIL moved to the care home on the same day that her flat was cleared in the sheltered housing complex she had been living in before going into hospital, so I saw to that whilst Adrian was with his Mum for her transfer.  She has been there about ten days now and seems to have settled in well.  Amazingly, the "dementia" symptoms have all but gone now, too.  The manager of her new care home has said that anxiety can cause the elderly to exhibit the signs of dementia, plus of course she had a urine infection to contend with as well.

The last few week have been stressful for all of us, but especially so for Adrian and his sister.  Hopefully things will settle down now that MIL is back living here in our home town.  I know that she is very pleased to be back, even though she is sad that she wasn't able to go back to her little flat.  I went to visit her the week before last and the change in her was amazing.  She is, obviously, still very frail but her colour is so much better, and I think she is feeling somewhat better in herself.  It will be easy for me to visit MIL each week now, although I didn't see her last week as I was feeling so rough.  I'm hoping that I will be fully recovered from this cold in a few days ~ I can't really go to see her until it is properly cleared up.

She is very aware that she was having hallucinations whilst she was in the nursing home ~ she told Adrian that she didn't really like it there, and it did something to her mind!  From what Adrian and Elaine have told me, the atmosphere was very different there to the home she is now living in.  But, then again, it was a nursing home and I suppose it had more of a hospital feel to it.  Where she is now living is a rather lovely old house, and her room is bright, freshly decorated, and with a view into town.  It has a nice, comfortable, "homely" to it, which is as much down to the staff as to the actual house, so here's hoping she will continue to be happy there :-)

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