Spring...

Daffs always make me think spring has sprung.

I went to the hospital first thing to be in time for the chat with the doctor. I wish I was confident that things were improving but I'm afraid I'm just not. 

We asked for an MRI scan back in November and it was finally done in January after they diagnosed Mum with depression. She's not depressed. They told us it was linked to her post natal depression... Please note that she's 82 and I'm about to turn 50. 

We knew she wasn't depressed and that there was something else wrong so we pushed. Finally she got an MRI in January and we were initially told the results showed nothing out of the ordinary. A week later the doctor came to the house and told us that she has vascular dementia and Alzheimer's. How we went from nothing out of the ordinary to that I'm not sure.

Mum has mostly been a bit of a zombie for the last few months and we assume that the antidepressants and the antipsychotic drugs were the cause so we insisted that they were reduced and then stopped. This is still an ongoing process and my Dad has been opening capsules and reducing them further (the druggy scales chat was quite funny) and the psychiatrist unofficially said we'd done the right thing. Unfortunately they don't seem to be listening in the hospital so have been giving her the higher dose so we're back to something of a zombie. 

My Dad stayed and I went to work and the plan was for my brother to do the evening shift. Mum wasn't great today and got stroppy with my Dad and my brother so I went back after work and let my brother go home. She's always happy to see me clearly I'm the favourite and was sweetness and light so when I asked what I could do for her she suggested I shoot my brother. My Dad and I have the same sense of humour so it tickled me... my brother not so much.

The nurses decided that she was being moved into a four bed ward so she had to give up her lovely private side room (I say lovely but don't read too much into that) and move all her stuff. The TV in the next bed was blaring out Corrie while the lady watching it slept so I dug out earplugs... Mum is more Classic FM than Corrie.

I waited till she was settled then left with hope that we can get some progress on getting her home. I don't want to slate the nurses but she's just another old person to them and we were clearly spoiled with the staff on the previous ward when she was in before Christmas who couldn't have been more awesome.

There's talk of moving her to a rehab bed and frankly I'd rather they just moved her home. However we need a proper care package in place before that can happen and it's unclear who's supposed to arrange that. Time will hopefully tell.