Deciding on a Home

This afternoon, I was summoned to my brother's house for a family conference, to decide how best to help dad and mum. My parents are both 70 years old, and my father has Parkinsons Disease. He's actually managed to hold it at bay for quite some time, having been diagnosed about 20 years ago. He's a hugely positive man, and insisted on remaining active and occupied. I remember how my dad was when my brother got married. Mark married a girl from Yugoslavia (I believe it still was at the time), and due to various complications, they actually decided to get married in Yugoslavia, and have a celebration here in England for friends who couldn't make it for the actual wedding. The Yugoslavian side of things went well, and all was set for the English part. Of course there were a number of Vesna's family who wanted to be at the celebrations here, as well, so a number of them were put up at my parents house in Fleet. What I remember very clearly was that dad was fabulous - he was always the consummate entertainer, the urbane host, charming and helpful to all the guests. And this time, almost as if spurred on by the recently diagnosed "illness", he made even more effort. He was first up in the morning and last to bed at night. He made, and drank, endless cups of Turkish coffee, the favoured drink. He was always available should anyone have a problem, to deal with it as quickly and cheerfully as possible.

And in the slowly creeping dementia he's now suffering, these are the memories to which we should cling. It's even more important now, than at any previous time, that we remember that he has been a very intelligent man. While the periods of being compos mentis are becoming shorter, the sharp wit and intelligence are still there in those times. It's all too easy to mis-understand him, because the Parkinsons has caused his speech to become slurred - the once sharp and funny, yet throwaway comments have become laboured, and un-funny because he has to translate when we don't hear them immediately.

So the chat today was to establish what I suspected all along - we are, as a family, still reading from the same hymn book. We all, my mum included, want my dad to have as much dignity as possible. While his nursing needs may be forcing him into a home, there's no need for this to be a hurried decision. We all remember, with shudders of horror, the home into which my grandmother was put when her senile dementia became too much for one person to deal with it alone. A rushed decision which was regretted with every increasingly infrequent visit. A home which, upon waking the inmates, would dress them and deposit them into the "day room", where a television provided the only stimulation. I think we all know that this kind of "stimulation" is worse than useless.

So, the meeting this afternoon was a fair success. I hope that both my mum and my dad realised that the rest of the family support them both. We know that mum is under a great deal of stress, because dad is not aware of the times when his mentis is not being very compos, but I like to think that we were able to reassure dad that we aren't planning on "shoving him in a home" to rot away in front of a television.

Next week we will all be attempting to visit Sunrise home in Fleet. We have a list of questions we plan to ask, and we'll have a jolly good poke around.

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