Seizing your memories....

As always, thanks for all your messages of support :)

Mum is still in hospital but could be home tomorrow. They added lamotrigine to her anti-seizure meds and kept her in to make sure she had no bad reaction to it.

As to what happened, that's still a mystery. She had a temperature, and that caused a seizure in her sleep so that she didn't wake up. What caused the temperature, we don't know. An infection, they thought, but couldn't find one anywhere. They treated her with anti-biotics till the temperature came down. They chased the last hospital for their MRI results but they never sent them (she had an MRI on 25th March and we've never had the results). So they did a CT Scan which proved normal....

I found her Monday morning. She wasn't conscious for 24 hours after that, going in and out of sleep and delirium. She was all over the place or completely out of it. Nothing in between. Except for one moment, just one, when her eyes managed to fix on mine and she whispered, "I can't take this any more." I tried to talk to her, but she was gone again, unable to reach any more words, jabbering again, reeling again. It was heartbreaking. We left the hospital at midnight that day, the first day.

She has been coming back bit by bit again, but as with the other times, there are big memory gaps. She has no memory of her house move. I took her a photo of her bungalow, and this is starting to come back to her, but the move has gone. So too have all the names of her neighbours, the bus routes, the walks we took, the shops we explored. We have to start again as though she just moved here.......

The hospital is much better than the one she was in in Kent. Finally, she will be under a neurologist. I hope the follow-ups are good. We need to get this under control, as each time I lose a little bit more of her...... her cognitive skills are suffering.... every day, the same questions, no memory of their answers....

Mum in hospital again... another seizure..... can't stop....please keep everything crossed.

In case you thought I'd dropped off the earth....

This is the first time this year I've sat out in the garden alone. It's gorgeous; sunny and warm. I've brought out the table and chairs.

I'm not completely on my own though, as it's Scooter's 5th or 6th time out. Yep, after a month indoors I have finally allowed him his freedom. As far as the fence, that is. And he has a collar, for the first time in many years, "just in case" his curiosity gets the better of him. My reward for such generosity? A bright, perfectly formed wee mousie, delivered to my doorstep with a chortle. Well, um, gosh, thanks, Scoob. I love you too!

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Now I must insert belated thanks to my two friends Stardust and Bumblevee, who sent me lovely packages from far away, simply to say they were thinking of me. The contents were humbling in their generosity. I should have mentioned them before...... so sorry.....

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It's hard to get online. I have some lovely photo's to share. The wisteria is out and as beautiful as it promised to be, and I have also discovered a Japanese peony. Its flower is the size of my hand :)

But my days are still- up a lot at night trying to calm Fluffy's meowing- dozing in the morning to catch up with sleep- seeing mum in the afternoon, shopping, talking, trying to reassure etc.- cooking in the evening- taking mum home- then bed or an hour or so with the radio or tv, exhausted. When to blog? Or email, for that matter. Or anything else.

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I am feeding the hedgehogs still; 4 in our garden the other night. And I saw a fox across the road. And a squirrel on our fence, twice. And today, baby starlings are having their first tour of the world outside the nest with their parents. So life goes on all around. Nature is a great soother of nerves. Oh and the emergency blue pills (!). Took one last night. They do help.
Yesterday was bad. It is building up, you see. I should remember the effect that stress and tiredness have on the bi-polar doobry-watnot.... yesterday I kept crying, I felt such a dead-weight inside me. Mum says she's lonely. But I see her every day. If only my siblings would call, send her a postcard or something.

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Fluffy has joined us in the garden. Which means Scooter is going to try to show her that it's all his. Must go, before fur flies......

What day is it, again?

- it's something my mum asks quite a bit but I'm starting to lose track, myself, lately. NOW, when she asks me, I have to think back to a day when I DID know what day it was, and then count forward, hoping that by the time I've got there she hasn't yet moved on to the next question. If so, never mind; tuck it in somewhere easily retrievable for when when she next asks...

Mum has been spending nights alone at the bungalow for almost a week now. (Please, quick! Touch something wooden!)

I have been pleased and stunned, really impressed at how forward she has been in speaking to her new neighbours, and joining in with things like coffee mornings down there. But still early days, and for that reason, she spends most of her time with me. We go shopping. I draw maps to show her the layout of the main streets here. We go to tea shops for lunch, and hunt all over for shoes to fit my madly shaped feet or trousers to fit her 4ft 8inch frame (no luck, on either account.)

Meanwhile Fluffy has so far cost Luvbug £240 in vet bills due to a bladder infection which the vet thinks is down to stress. And no wonder. Scooter is frustrated at not being able to go outside and spends his spare energy running to and fro all over the house, chortling, and if Fluffy happens to "be in the way" in mid run, well too bad, he thinks. Just makes the inevitable crash more interesting.

I am back in my own bed at last but never for long; Fluffy being deaf, has no idea how loud her night-time calling is. She starts around 2am, calling upstairs. This one is just for a cuddle, but she won't settle on the bed, I have to come down to her. Fooled into thinking she is settled: by the purring, toes in the air, all smiles, I sneak back up to bed.
The second call will be about 3.15. This is a hungry one, where she can't remember where her dish is. I come downstairs and point it out to her. Stay for a cuddle. All settled. Off to bed I sneak, again
5am. This is the killer one. SOOOOO loud. This is the "Where am I? Where's mum? Am I still alive? What's happening?" one. I come downstairs, pick her up, cuddle her and snuggle down on the sofa together till she gets fed up and goes back to bed ok again. I remain on the sofa till Scooter dives on my head for breakfast.

Except today.
I took one of my emergency-crisis-only Lorazepam last night. I can take one to help me sleep. Ha. I took two in the end. It is 4pm now and I am still sleepily relaxed. The mogs are fed, the carpet hoovered, sort of, the washing is on the line (in the rain) and mum is getting a lift from Luvbug up to our place later. If I had sounded alive when she called this morning I think she'd be here now, or I'd have gone to her.... but no, couldn't keep the sleepiness out of my voice. This was My Head Is Collapsing Inwards Day. I've had banana sandwiches and tea. I wore pyjamas till an hour ago. I only woke up at all earlier when Scooter clawed my eye open in a desperate "Anyone in there?"

So. Luvbug and mum here by 5.15 ish. I guess they will want feeding. Or something. I've no idea what. I am so tired. Can I go home now? Oh no, wait, I AM home.