Day 4,020 in the Nanny June Care Home

The One with the Christmas Eve Get Out.

My Christmas Eve visit to Nanny June went badly but was a success from a care planning point of view.

I took Nanny June a Christmas card and some flowers and that legendary favourite of many old people - Turkish Delight.

When I arrived Nanny June was still being prepared for her day, with all her most personal care being done by better people than me. Nanny June does not take well to her personal care being provided for her and is always annoyed by it. So when it was finished I was already going into a not particularly positive room. But in I went and in the style of a CBeebies presenter announced my arrival with a Merry Christmas and here’s some lovely presents! Ooh flowers! Very pretty! And some Turkish Delight! You love this stuff. Then I removed the cellophane to make it easier for arthritis ridden hands to help themselves to. Then I sniffed it to check it still makes me want to gag. It does.

In response to all this festive, loving cheer - Nanny June looked right at me and shouted “GET OUT”.

There’s some sort of automatic response when your mum shouts at you. A bad feeling of having done something wrong and being in trouble. I reeled for a moment before resuming my kids tv personality composure and responding with “it is not nice to shout at people who have just bought you gifts. It is rude and unkind.”

A promised breakfast of tea and toast still hadn’t arrived and Nanny June is not going to wait a moment more in my company. She shuffled out of the room on her frame as fast as her crumbling hips could carry her. When I follow she tries to change direction.

Someone finally arrived with tea and toast and told me not to take it personally. Which is a very kind thing to say. Kind but futile.

Then Nanny June takes on a three hundred point turn to reverse park herself in a chair. Someone gets me a chair and offers me a cup of tea.

A few years ago this would have made a nice breakfast date. But not now. With steely determination Nanny June refuses any breakfast chit chat and looks pointedly in the other direction. Except when she wants a bit of toast.

This isn’t quite the same behaviour she has with the care home staff so I definitely illicit a different response. Maybe it’s just too much for her degraded old synapses that are misfiring more and more. Somewhere she knows she knows me. Emotions are there but they are mixed up and not coming out right.

Me and my tv personality persona abandon the visit and go downstairs to where a nurse is waiting to do a care plan review. Which is a jolly task for Christmas Eve. We discuss if Nanny June has a DNACPR (do not resuscitate) in place and what form her health is in. There are dietary supplements in place to compensate for her poor appetite. Her mobility is good but unsteady. If she falls she probably won’t ever get back up. Tough old bird that she is though, she’s on no age related medication just some meds for the dodgy thyroid she has had since a teenager. Only one other resident carries such an accolade of good health.

Refusing to give up or give in, Nanny June is out to provide that turkeys might not be the only tough old birds around this festive season.