All Change

I drove the car to the Care Home while my daughter went with Rosemarie in the ambulance. The driver said they were running over an hour late and proved it apparently by driving like Lewis Hamilton. I arrived at the Care Home at 5.15 and the ambulance arrived at 5.30.

Rosemarie was whisked to her room where is was discovered that the mattress had not been changed for an air mattress as required (worry about bed sores). She was distressed and uncertain about what was going on, and it was not made better by having to be hoisted into a wheelchair so the ambulance men could take their stretcher.

While the mattress inflated we took her down to the garden but it was late in the day and a bit cold. She didn't really enjoy it and we didn't stay long. The Sensory Room, also on the ground floor, was more successful. The lights and bubbles seemed to calm her a bit.

We went back to her room and she was hoisted back into the bed. The nursing staff brought her a late supper of some mash and a yoghurt, and after that they changed her. She seemed distressed and restless and my daughter and I tried to calm her. At about 10 she was given a sleeping tablet and some paracetamol. She was still restless when we left at 11.

It was with some trepidation that I phoned up the following morning to find out how she was.

To recap: Rosemarie had been in hospital two months during which she had only been out of bed a few times, and even then hardly successfully. She had not used the toilet in that time, and had spent most of the days restless, weeping or asleep. Other than yoghurt and trifle she had not eaten much. The physiotherapists told us to expect her to remain bedridden for the rest of her life and the Speech Therapist doubted she would ever eat normal food again.

The Care Home answered promptly and put me through to Jennifer, the nurse assigned to her. Rosemarie had experienced a restless night, but had woken up OK in the morning. Jennifer then casually told me that she had been taken into the en suite and had a shower and had her hair washed, been lifted onto the toilet where she did her first bowel movement in a toilet in over eight weeks, and was wheeled into the Lounge where she had said Good Morning to everyone. She ate most of her breakfast.

Wow. We were pretty impressed. Not bad for a first morning.

I arrived about 10 to find her still sitting in the lounge and she seemed pleased to see me. After a while she was lifted from the wheelchair into one of the high backed armchairs (no hoist). I had to leave about 11.30 to go home and pick up the labeller (everything in her room needs to be inventoried and labelled). When I returned she was tearful but the care workers told me that earlier she had been singing along and clapping. After eating half her lunch she seemed tired so we took her back to her room where she had a sleep for about an hour. My daughter arrived and we had her assisted into a wheelchair and took her down to the garden again. She sort of enjoyed it but I had the feeling it was alien to her to be outside.

We came back upstairs for supper at 5 (she ate half of it and all the ice cream) but got tearful afterwards, particularly when my daughter left. She cheered up when my son arrived early evening and was relatively calm when we left at about 8.30.

It certainly felt different from the hospital and there was a distinct can-do attitude that was refreshing. Very early days though, and we were warned that the move itself was likely to result in deterioration. The disease hasn't changed, just the setting.

But I allowed a cautious hope to flutter in my heart.