I am keeping this blog-journal of our journey with bringing Mum home to live with us from her care home. The care she was receiving has resulted in her being fully diabetic (T2D) with an absolute refusal from the care home (backed up by the GP, who illegally (I think) have disregarded both mine and my mother’s requests for the condition to be controlled and reversed by diet. Hard to believe that any doctor would support a dreadful diet and medication rather than a few tweaks to diet but here we are. Or were.
Mum has been home for just over a week and has been eating a low carb healthy diet. For example, last night we ate grilled sea bass with an abundance of broccoli, peas and asparagus, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and a tiny sprinkling of Himalayan sea salt (pink, obviously!).
We won’t know the change to Mum’s blood sugar levels until she gets tested in 3 months – 1 week. I suspect they will be normal. So, are there any visible changes? Well, thank you for asking! Yes, the biggest visible change is that the whites of Mum’s eyes are now bright white and her eyes look clear. Just over a week ago the whites were dull and her irises seemed to me to be a bit cloudy. She also looks 10+ years younger. Her skin is plump and shiny once again. And, of course, she is now taking one less medication, so hopefully her kidneys and liver feel a little less burdened.
The only downside to removing the medication and cheap bulking agents (i.e. cereal, toast, cake, biscuits that made up most of Mum’s daily food consumption) is that Mum has not pooped since we brought her home. We have added a fibre drink to her daily routine, a few prunes and apple slices, and a stool softener. If nothing happens today, we will give her some Senna and let it do its thing. Don’t worry, all of this is with the advice and assistance of our new local GP surgery who fully support the change in diet and removal of medication.
I have to confess, a part of me (a VERY LARGE part of me) is secretly (and now, not so secretly) relieved that Mum hasn’t pooped because I am going to have to wipe her clean thereafter. I have no idea how to do it nor how to do it and maintain Mum’s dignity. If she even let’s me. Which brings me on to…
To bathe or not to bathe. Or rather, not to bathe. Mum has not been bathed or showered since she came home. It was always our biggest concern and was mentioned every time we discussed bringing Mum home, with the social worker ‘team leader,’ who assured us that they would organise something suitable. As yet, we have been given a bath swivel chair – which we were not sure was going to work – and doesn’t. First of all, Mum is terrified of it. Secondly, there’s no way of getting her onto it without her compliance and she is definitely not compliant. So, they haven’t sorted it at all. Yet.
In fact, there is no training offered or given to someone bringing home an extremely vulnerable person from a care home, nor any checks made on whether the room we were preparing, was in any fit state for her.
We literally collected Mum from her care home, brought her home and not a word from Mum’s social workers to ask how any of us, whether Mum has settled and whether we need anything. That’s social care for you.
There’s also the issue of undressing Mum. She’s not having it. As soon as I try to remove her clothing, to change her from jamas to day clothes, she gets aggressive. I tried to fully undress her in the bathroom to try the bath chair and she started shaking from head to toe with fear accompanied by absolute fury. I put her jamas back on and left it at that.
So, here we are eight days in: Mum is bright eyed, constipated and one of the great unwashed.
Further reading:
Background (c-PTSD/Childhood Sexual Abuse): https://toulamavridoumesser.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/only-dead-on-the-inside/
Toula Mavridou-Messer 