Weekly update – weary

Unusual for me – I’m feeling weary.  Weary of all kinds of things and I’m sure it’s just a passing phase and yet I need to remind myself that I shouldn’t be selfish or fret about things.

Poor old Grandma is still in hospital, albeit a rehab ward.  It is now five weeks since she had a minor stroke and we called an ambulance.  When that happened, we figured she’s be in hospital for just a few days and then return with a revised medication list.  Not so.

At 94 she can be forgiven for feeling weary herself and we do feel for her, knowing it’ll be hard for her to grasp what’s going on.  She probably doesn’t feel very ill and must be wondering why she’s stuck in hospital and being prevented from coming home.  Perhaps she’s even thinking we have abandoned her.  We haven’t but that’s just me trying to imagine what she might be thinking.

Having occasionally visited her in the rehab unit (slightly under the radar in these COVID times) and had a lengthy discussion with the hospital staff, we believe she would benefit from being in a nursing home.  While we were looking after her, we were probably at our limit, on the edge of our capabilities.  Add the vascular dementia diagnosis into the mix, the likelihood of a further stroke and her general frailty, this all points towards a nursing home.

And this then opens another world of officialdom which we need to navigate through.  There’s such a thing as Continuing Healthcare Funding – it sounds jolly good on the surface.  This is where the NHS pays for all nursing home expenses, whatever that may entail.  Good so far but getting it is another thing.  The alternative is seeing her savings go down by well over £1,000 a week, considerably more if you include the 24/7 nursing care she needs.

Turns out there are a number of advocacy firms out there.  For a fee they will guide us through the application process and even represent us.  There’s still no guarantee it’ll work.  Seems there’s a whole industry out there for this kind of thing.

Interestingly I heard on BBC Radio 4 You and Yours about the Continuing Healthcare Funding being the NHS’s best kept secret.  How can families in our situation fight their way through the funding red tape when someone in a distant office can make a decision – a financial decision – which will then have a huge impact on an individual and their heirs? Connected to this, we now find ourselves trying to decide if we will engage an advocacy firm to help us seek the funding in a world where social care and health professions seem to pass the tab to each other and, worse still, onto families like us.  We are reasonably savvy and Rachel is brilliant at researching things like this and yet it’s such a daunting prospect.  We are already somewhat frayed and worn out with things before we even start this journey through officialdom.

At the same time we need to select a nursing home, one which can cater for her needs now and in the future.  Inevitably we find ourselves in front of a computer screen reading glossy websites and Care Quality Commission inspection reports with plenty of phone calls mixed in.

That’s some of why I’m feeling weary.  It isn’t just the challenge of the Dusty Museum with all of it’s special features and things falling to bits (see previous post).  We have just about got our tenants settled into our house in Dunstable and the last few aspects are hopefully falling into place.  At least we are pleased a young family can benefit from living in our empty home.

Oh, me.  I think I might have mentioned before about plantar fasciitis.  Apparently this is common to runners who over do things i.e. me back in the summer.  It is dragging on and I’m in danger of it dragging me down.  Just when I think it is improving and almost healed, I then get a bad day and I’m hobbling around.

So I miss running.  I miss the beautiful Runner’s High.  I miss pushing myself further and faster (though that’s pretty unimpressive these days) and I miss running through our lovely countryside.  Most of all, I miss being able to mull things over, to think things through and keep things in perspective.

The other side of not running is my rising blood pressure, plus I feel stiff and achy so much.  Normally a good run maintains a certain level of fitness which sorts these things out.

On Saturday I had a flu vaccine and then did some gardening.  I tried to dig out a stubborn shrub which Rachel and Paula (the gardener) had previously condemned.  The roots went in all directions including straight down and under the driveway.  Suffice to say I was defeated.  Worse still, I’m even more feeling stiff and achy.  So is it the flu vaccine’s effects already?  Is it a sign of being so out of shape?  Probably.  And it doesn’t take long to lose that suppleness, strength and stamina.

So that’s why I’m feeling a bit weary.  Is that wrong, or perhaps it’s okay?  I tell myself it’s okay and my instinctive optimism kicks in.  The best is always to come, I always have to believe this and, you know, I think it is true.