2010 — 11 August: Wednesday
"Googling" for the simple four word phrase "continuing NHS health care"1 is an eye-opening experience. I ended up carefully reading a very clear 57-page document from the Alzheimer's Society. Why is this important? It's very simple: if the upcoming assessment of dear Mama's condition / state / call it what you will concludes that she needs "continuing NHS health care" then that is potentially (but only potentially) a green light for the NHS to be responsible (in law) for full payment of her nursing care, including the cost of the care-home in which she is provided with that nursing care. Which could have a bearing on whether Big Bro and I are actually forced to sell her house to pay these care-home bills for her.
A handful of test cases has established this principle, but the practice varies widely. And NHS trusts have been known to try to get Social Services departments to step in and provide a level of "social" care that a) is beyond their remit (because it's basically nursing care by the back door), but that b) (crucially) is paid for by the individual and not by the NHS. (I suspect the technical medical term for this is something complex, like, erm, "cheating".)
It's fair to say that my brief study period has done much harm to the relaxed good mood I was in on having finished watching the utterly delightful film Up in the air — to which I would happily award the full 10/10 were I in the business of awarding such scores. Anyway, as it's now already 02:10 I really should think about getting some sleep to help deal with my incipient headache, and to let my subconscious further process what I've been reading.
If the Buddhists are right about reincarnation, I think I'd like to return as a dung beetle — seems to me they have a lot less merde2 to deal with!
Fry on QWERTY...
... makes for a slightly surreal start to a nice new day. Where's my cuppa?
I liked both the writing and, in particular, comment #14 to this composite review of four books on the trivial matter of what happens after death. Source and snippet:
Looking up on a cloudless, moonless night at the unending universe provides proof enough that there are aspects to reality that we cannot fully comprehend. Yet what we do know about the
workings of the universe stresses the central role of energy in ordering what we see.
Life too comes to a screeching halt when energy processing is no longer possible. No energy flow, no neuronal activity, no thought, no being, would seem to be our best bet for how things
work — for now at least. So when you're dead you're "not" anymore and the "container" gets automatically re-cycled on some sort of time scale...
One ought not to smile at this, which I've only just noticed in my somewhat distracted whirl through life recently. But I did. Recall that HL Mencken quote ... "The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" :-)
Time (10:50) to hit the road — not literally, I hope. [Pause] A brief pit stop, load the washing machine, pick up the snail mail (one for Christa, none for me) and time to re-hit the road. Are we having fun yet? It's 13:37 and ticking along.
Rather later
Time (18:55) to think about my evening meal (with a tasty crockpot on hand, I don't have to think very hard). This, after a cuppa and a slice of cake with dear Mama, followed later by a cuppa with Mike (whose house is on my return route from the care-home). The Aged P was willing to walk with me down one floor to a lounge for some music "activity" — not a Zimmer frame dance (though there were many on display); I think that would have cracked even my composure for sure — but she was too shy to venture across the threshold when she saw the massed ranks (as it were). She didn't, she said, want everyone looking at her. I didn't argue.
It's fair to say that many of the residents seem currently to be in rather better shape (or, possibly, more compliant) than dM, but she was perfectly happy just to sit with me in an upstairs lounge with a balcony overlooking the garden. It occurs to me it's probably a good idea to check yourself into one of these places before you need to, rather than after you need to. I also met the nurse whose kindly sympathy during her phone call last Sunday morning had so nearly damaged my composure then. Some of these people (I am not one) are angels in human form; make no mistake. My "conversation" with dear Mama for the couple of hours I remained there was as devastatingly circular as ever, and even occasionally almost amusingly3 surreal. (Though I made no attempt to explain the joke, trust me. Christa would have smiled.)
It's complicated
I've paused the film after about 45 minutes while I make a cuppa, and check email. I don't think I shall finish watching it tonight — I was drumming my fingers with boredom and impatience at more than one point. Not usually a good sign.
And is it a good sign, I wonder, that dear Mama needs prompting to recall the names of her sons? She suggested I was John at one point. She has no apparent recall of Christa, or her grandson, or her husband, or her daughter-in-law, or her four granddaughters. She can name people in older family photos, but not newer ones. As signs go, it doesn't seem good to me. It's like a real-life version of that Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! — a line from Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard".4 I wonder what the GP will make of her tomorrow though, as far as I can tell, this is simply "classic" dementia, cut and dried. There are memories still "in there" but the archivist is mostly out to a very long lunch.
Which reminds me: Lunch tomorrow with Len. Lunch on Friday with Iris. Let's see if I can avoid boring them both (and me) with these minor-league domestic woes. It sounds cruel, but I feel little anguish about the plight of a 93-year-old who always seemed to me to have difficulty in being happy, or even content. Especially when I contrast her with Christa, who always had difficulty in being anything but happy. "All part of Life's rich tapestry", as dM's forgotten husband often used to say to dM's forgotten younger son :-)
I think I need an earlier night tonight. Before I forget. Yawn. What was I saying?