2nd visit overview

I had thought that this second visit would pass more smoothly, since we achieved so much in the last week I was down about a fortnight ago. However, Mum seems to have degenerated further.

I find that she’s been put on anti-biotics for a foot infection (she hasn’t been cleaning properly between her toes), and she isn’t able to remember to take the tablets. She’ll angrily claim that she’s taken 6 that morning when she’s only meant to have taken one and there are the same number of tablets that there were last night.

Mum is constantly telling me “You’ve said that before, of course” when we’re talking. This reminds me of a road-trip we took 5 years ago, where we would have massive arguments whenever she insisted we had been on a particular French street the day before, even though she acknowledged that we had started that day 300 miles away in anther place entirely.

Each morning, when I’m at breakfast, Mum will glance down at my legs and criticize my running shorts, saying “We can’t go to the Doctors/Bank/Shops/Walk with you wearing those! You’d better buy yourself some long trousers.” This is despite the fact that I’ve been wearing long trousers every day this visit and the last.

Mum never never says “Thank you” to me once, even when I spend a whole evening cleaning her kitchen.

We watch television but she doesn’t understand the plots of the simplest dramas. After about 5 minutes of anything, I’ll find that she has fallen asleep hunched forward in her chair.

I test Mum this evening, after a full day which has involved 3 visits to the Doctor’s Surgery and much fussing around her. I ask Mum if she’s taken the dog out for a walk today.
“Yes, of course!” she says.
I ask her to tell me where she took the dog, and she describes the whole route.
Of course, I was with Mum all day and we neither of us took the dog for a walk. This confirms my suspicions about all the times she’s told me over the phone that the dog has had a walk that day.