Forget-Me-Nots have a whole new meaning now.

I took this photograph way back in April 2011 as part of a blog post here, when at the time it was just a pretty little flower hidden amongst the greenery. Nowadays though Forget-Me-Nots mean a whole lot more.

My mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in late 2014 and at the time still led a wonderful life with my dad but was forgetful and starting to get unsteady on her feet. The following year my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and life would never be the same again.

Mum continued to deteriorate at a slow pace but generally life went on as normal, dad coped well and they continued to have a nice time. Once we lost my sister in June 2016 she declined at a faster pace.

People with a general diagnosis of dementia seem to have a steady decline in symptoms, literally like going down a hill, whereas it is noticeable in people with Alzheimer's that they deteriorate in steps, like walking down stairs, they continue on the flat and then suddenly one day they struggle more or lose an ability to do things that they may have been able to do the day before. Events in life can effect people with dementia greatly and losing my sister was a major event for all of us. 

For me, I'd lost someone I absolutely adored and whom I'd looked up to all my life. She was and is one of the most amazing people I have ever known. I am so grateful to have had her in my life and I miss her greatly every single day. I feel so lucky that I got to spend the last few weeks of her life with my sister and to be able to hold her hand at the end. 

I'm not sure that I have truly been able to grieve for my sister as we had to hit the ground running after her death to take on much bigger caring roles for my mum when dad started struggling to cope. I have  moments where I am so angry that she'd left me personally but also left me and my brother to deal with things without her. I'm angry that she hadn't seen a doctor or got treatment earlier, unreasonable anger for sure but its there at times all the same, but mostly on the whole I feel an overwhelming sadness and loss, an emptiness where she once was. I find it difficult to think or talk about her and writing this nearly 5 years later is no easier than it would have been in the weeks following her death. But we go on and get through each day the best we can and some days we don't think about things and life is normal once again. 

Things with mum started to get really hard in 2018, daily phone calls from dad to come over as he couldn't deal with things and we found ourselves having to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

My lovely, kind and caring mum, who would always say how much she loved me, no longer always knew knew who I was, would get angry at me for being in her home and tell me to get out of her house.  

In 2020 mum was permanently placed into a care home and I've spoken about that here in my letter to my local MP. 

Due to new laws that have come into force, currently two visitors are allowed into the care home to see mum. My dad obviously and my brother go to see her in a designated room, but still have to maintain a 2 meter distance and wear full PPE with masks. 

I chose not to do the internal visits, due to having to wear the masks inside and so currently get to see her for 30 minutes a week in a pod, behind glass with prisoner type microphones. This works better in some ways as at least she is able to see my face, but even then there's not always a spark of recognition. Mums speech has deteriorated quite badly and she speaks so quietly anyway that I spend most of my 30 minutes trying to lip read, but maybe I should be grateful rather than bitter for the 30 minutes a week I am allowed to see my own mother. 

But I made the decision that I don't want to see mum inside until I can see her properly, without a mask and to be able to do the things for her that I promised I would always do when she no longer could. One of the things I promised was that I would always ensure all of the hairs that grew on her chin or upper lip would be plucked out and its a funny thing that seeing she now has a little beard is one of the things that really upsets me about not being able to be with her properly for the last year. 

My beautiful mum would be absolutely devastated and horrified if she ever thought that from a 2 or 3 meter distance, behind a glass wall people would see hairs growing out of her chin. I told her this week that once I got in to see her properly I would be pinning her down and plucking every last stray hair off her face, she laughed merrily and said she would look forward to it. A lovely end to a lovely visit.

Me and Mum October 2016

February 2021 taken by the care home

Going Retro

One of the problems with clearing one cluttered house into another already cluttered house is having an excess of furniture, so it's time for a revamp. 

I'm over the painted furniture look but I'm not a sleek modern person either, so I have fallen for the current popular look of Mid Century Modern, but on a budget. I don't mind spending money on pieces that I want to move with us, if we ever find our final forever house, but because we don't know what that new house will look like its best to wait to invest in special bits until we move.

So out went my amazingly comfy sofa, but not nice colour (well its now stored in the spare room) and in went the 3 meter long leather sofa from the other house. Not as comfortable but its definitely a statement piece of furniture in the room and the room needed to be decorated around it. 

We have a new boiler being fitted this week and the house is in turmoil, but one thing that we did in preparation for the boiler was to change the radiator in the living room from along the main wall, to up the wall and it's made a huge difference. I decided to paint the wall before the radiator went up and I now have a room of two halves.

The main long is now a deep mustard colour, which looks great with the sofa. I also managed to pick up a set of mid century nest of tables for just £10 as they need a bit of TLC, but that's no problem and i'll happily spend a day bringing them back to life at some point. But for now a good clean and antibac wipe down and they look just fine.

But the other half of the room is different, it has a TV sitting on a chest of drawers and it still has a glass fronted cupboard, that after originally stripping and waxing, here, I decided to paint it, here. Obviously I'm now regretting the latter decision as I want to remove the chalk paint and get it back to its original natural wood. Another project for another day as I'm discovering that taking off chalk paint isn't quite as easy as I thought it would be.

I've also got into plants, I've never had plants around the house until the last few months and now I can't get enough of them. They just make everything look more comfortable and homely. My children are now following suit and we are turning into a 1970s family where you'd have to get someone in to water your plants if you ever actually get to go away.

Its not going to be to everyones taste and it has taken a bit of getting used to but I'm growing to like it.

 

April update

Here we go again. I really thought that making myself accountable on here would help me achieve goals but its not having the effect I was hoping for.

• Weight - It was ok, but suddenly its going up. 
• Physical wellbeing - Could be better.
• Mental wellbeing - Better.

Weight - I was going down 0.5lb a week, but in the last week I somehow have managed to gain 4lbs! Yes 4lbs in a week and although I have eaten some things I wouldn't normally eat it shouldn't account for all that weight gain.

Physical wellbeing - Still not much exercise going on. The house completed and I'm now starting the process all over again helping my aunt clear out her house, having sold it within a week of being marketed. 

The headaches have been back but I'm starting to believe they could be food intolerances as well as hormonal. I try to follow a plant based diet and take inspiration from Dr Greger of the How not to die fame. In his last book, How not to diet he has a recipe for BROL, which is basically cooked Barley groats, Rye grain, Oat groats and lentils. I had it for breakfast with soya milk and frozen berries and it was delicious. However not only do Barley and Rye contain gluten, but I think its actually the oats that causes me digestive problems. 

I started having steal cut oats in March last year but everytime I eat them I end up with terrible burping and I really mean terrible, I sound like I'm belching from a drain, right up from my boots and its not at all lady like. I also get a weird prickly chest and throat thing. Its taken me a while to put two and two together and give up oats because everything you read says that oats is so good for your gut health. If you have gut problems, eat oats, or not in my case. 

I've done my research and found articles which explain why some people just can not tolerate oats. There is a chemical in oats called Avenin that affects some people and unfortunately I'm beginning to think I am one of those unlucky few. Every time I reintroduce oats or wheat I get the gut issues as well as migraine or tension type headaches which can then last for two or three days. Maybe its just time to finally kick the habit of both and just accept that I can't have them. The days I am headache free just feel wonderful, everything just seems so much better.

Mental wellbeing - This has got much better this last month. Spring is on its way and the sun shines most days, fingers crossed this just keeps getting better.