Friday Night Update!

Had a major hair cut this week – three inches chopped off!!! I feel scalped! Got fed up with it and now feels loads lighter. Growing my fringe out, which will be a massive pain, but having lots cut off will help the fringe to catch the rest up.

Dire and crisis situation with my parents this week, like really bad. I'm off to look at care homes tomorrow. Mother hasn't really had any sleep over the last 48 hours – Father refused to go to bed until 2am Thursday morning and not until 4am Friday morning and combined with accidents, my Mother is beyond exhausted. I had to ring all sorts of people today, Social Services, District Nurses etc etc to kick some asses (sorry for bluntness, but I'm also exhausted). Mother didn't put her phone back on properly from early morning ALL DAY, which made me stressed at work all day. I was really, really worried, I didn't know if something serious had happened, if Father had been taken to a res. home or what the hell was going on.

I normally take my sister Lucy to her orchestra rehearsal on Friday evenings, but had to get someone else to do that, which was lucky. I went straight over to parents after work. When I arrived at Holme, I opened the front door and there was Mother, sitting in a chair watching the news and father sat in his chair looking very sleepy and not looking very well. Mother looked surprised to see me. I was pretty angry and bossily instructed Mother to turn round and look at the phone – 'what?' she said. "Its off the bl**dy hook' I said.... 'its been off ALL bleep bleep day' and I went into a massive rant!!! 'It must have been the cat who knocked the receiver off...'she said. Later on I sellotaped a massive note on her front door to ALWAYS check that the phone is ON!

I visited one care home in Hunstanton this evening, which I was not particularly enthralled by – I turned up unannounced deliberately – I like to see things as they really are! A few more homes to look at locally tomorrow. Social Services coming out to do a care home assessment for Father next week and to see how they can assist Mother at home, if she still declines to put Father into a Residential home. She is being far too good a wife. I don't want my Father in a care home any more than she does, but its killing her and putting it bluntly if it does, then he will have to go into care anyway. If only I was in a position to care for him myself I would. It's tearing me apart.

Father has refused his quetiapine tablet the last two days, but had agreed to have this tablet this evening with Mother, just before I arrived. Its not a good idea to give this tablet early evening, best taken late evening and because of this, Father was now seriously sluggish and lethargic. I had to stay and help to get him into bed early, before we couldn't do anything with him. He wasn't making much sense when I tried to talk to him this evening. He accepted my hugs and a kiss and was calm, but got really angry when I tried to take his jumper off to change into pyjamas – I just carried on, there's no other way of dealing with someone with dementia when they are like this. Mother and I did a good job of getting him into bed in a very comfortable position and all was calm when I left at 8.30pm.

Returned to King's Lynn to do a big Tesco shop at 9pm. Walked round the shop in a sleepy trance, having had no dinner this evening. Finished just in time to go and pick my sister Lucy up at 10pm, took her home and then got back to my house at 10.30pm. It was really funny, Lucy had also had three inches cut off her long hair this week, we both have the same hair cut now! Collapsed on the sofa and struggled to put my shopping away. Sleepily typing blog.

Good Night!