Day 2,248 in the Nanny June Care Home

The One With The Disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: I have thought very hard about sharing this. It’s not in any way easy. I have also always tried to respect Nanny June’s privacy and for all that gets shared, a lot doesn’t. But the people we love suffer sometimes. And there’s nothing we can do. There are some incredibly kind and caring people who regularly ask after June and if I don’t share this part of our journey, people might expect a different answer when they next ask after her.

After The Queen died, a very clever and insightful doctor shared that when you consciously looked back it was clear that she had been dying for quite some while. Because dying sometimes happens over a long period of time.

Losing our parents to illness and long term care is a situation of loss of which we traditionally try not to publicly articulate. Possibly because I think we want to spare peoples feelings. Or hide from it. But I am neither valiant or silent. However, you can just scroll on by. I haven’t trapped you in an awkward conversation in the street. You could stop reading now and save yourself!

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for Nanny June. She keeps falling with some regularity. She’s embarked on some sort of version of extreme sports but it’s extreme falling. It’s sort of her new hobby. But it’s more dangerous than kite surfing or parachuting. Now she has fallen so many times that she can’t get up and so is currently classed as ‘immobile’. Which in the care world is a very loud warning klaxon. The care home are keen to get her back to being mobile because old people that don’t get out of bed tend to deteriorate quite quickly. The carers that look after Nanny June do just that. They do care. They are concerned and staying in touch. There are lots of phone calls. But I know that once she gets up she will fall again. And now we are stuck in a cycle.

Not a peep out of Nanny June on the visit over Easter. No quiet rage, no keenness to get away. No bloody mindedness at the world. No engagement with me at all. No anything in fact.

So this is not a sensationalist image for sympathy as if some yoofs attacked a defenceless little old lady - for the record Nanny June was never classed as defenceless and would have won that every time. This is a much more ambiguous battle but the harm is the same. And Nanny June isn’t winning this one.

This is what dementia looks like. It looks like pain and bruising. It looks like hopelessness and fatigue. It looks like care plan meetings and visits where nothing happens. It looks like nights and days where nothing notable happens at all.

And this is the story of not just my mum, but so many other mums, so many dads. So many people. We are people. This is us.

And maybe that’s why I share it. Because in some ways we are mundane. We are everyday.

But we are also special and unique and our story is unique and deserves to be heard.

Because our story breathes life into the stories of other people and when you stop to hear those stories, they take on a life of their own. When we share our stories, we see a strength and compassion in others we never knew existed.