8. The urgent and growing need for carers for mum

When mum had her major fall requiring an overnight stay, I left the hospital in a state of confusion. What do I next, to mitigate further falls? The medical team at the Royal London Hospital: physios, doctors, nurses and the social worker all jointly emphasised the importance of mum having carers in the house and moving her bedroom from upstairs to downstairs and the occupational therapy team were keen to check the house and make it more habitable for mum. She declined any support saying that she could manage on her own.

I thought emotional blackmail would help the situation, so I told her that there was no point in me visiting her and trying to help her if she was not willing to do things to help herself. Her response to me was “As you wish. Don’t visit me if you don’t want to!” At times I felt that I was the one that was being emotionally black mailed by her and felt an immense level of guilt for not being around in London to support her.

I returned to Sweden as the hospital suggested they move her to her local hospital - Whipps Cross Hospital. Mum was adamant she didn’t want to go there as it was where both my sister and father had passed away. However, she didn’t have much of a choice and one night they moved her there. I received a phone call from her at 3am in Sweden saying that she had been kidnapped and that they had taken her somewhere. She spent another two weeks at Whipps Cross Hospital.

By this time, I had returned to London as my husband’s niece was getting married mid-June and I wanted to sort out mum’s house so that she could move back home safely and push for carers yet again. She finally agreed to have carers but only ones of her choice and reluctantly she agreed to move her bedroom downstairs. I bought a hospital bed that would be comfortable for her and then I scouted for carers. In total she spent a month in hospital - two weeks at the Royal London followed by two weeks at Whipps Cross Hospital and not just an overnight stay as we had thought would be the case in the beginning.

It was around this time that the penny dropped that something really was wrong, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it! However, her delusions about being kidnapped spurred me on to at least have her diagnosed for dementia. Given that she was already in hospital it made sense for me to ask for her to be assessed there. Beyond that I had no clue what to do or where to go for help.

8. The urgent and growing need for carers for mum