bluefirebird

Day 5 Friday December 31st - we all visited again this afternoon. My aunt was delighted to see us: "I haven't seen you in ages." (no, not for the last 48 hours!)

She is obviously not very clear on where she is, at times she thinks that she is at home, as others she understands for all of 5 seconds that she is in hospital and asks why.

We saw her case worker today and he explained that she started it all off by calling the surgery on Monday because she didn't feel well - not that she remembers any of that. Apparently her blood test results aren't quite normal, so they will keep her in for a few days more to figure that out.

I know she is physically capable of pretty much looking after herself, but it is difficult to understand that she is capable of looking after herself when she cannot remember what happened 10 minutes ago - like letting a pot of water boil dry on the stove because she cannot remember putting it on to boil.

The case worker seems to think that she can return home with some support, like people checking up on her a couple of times a day, and something like meals on wheels to make sure she has a hot meal everyday. Once she realised we were talking about meals on wheels and not making a will, she made "oh, it hasn't come to that" type noises. *sigh* Like Pete's mother who helped all the "old people" at the church when most of them were younger than she was...

It must be horrible to get old when your internal view of yourself doesn't match the external reality.

Happy New Year!