I'm sorry. I had just started to visit the board a little more regularly. I wanted to have some piece of insane, escapist fiction to post here. Instead, I have this.

As some of you may know, my mother has been ill for some time, suffering from some variant of Alzheimer’s. She died this morning.


Mum started to become ill shortly before my father died (also from complications from Alzheimer’s). She went from being very social to sitting at home looking at the walls (and then going off on a coach trip every two months). She slowly became too ill to go on the holidays unescorted.

Then she was rushed to hospital after being taken ill on a holiday, escorted by one of her old schoolfriends. She had to spend two weeks in a nursing home as the hospital were trying to chuck her out and we needed the time to set up care arrangements at home.

The arrangements didn't work. Mum started going to bed earlier than the carers could arrive in the evenings, so we had to cancel the evening carers. The "Meals on Wheels" service was very good, but she tended not to eat the food. She started getting very unsteady on the stairs so I fitted an extra rail at the top. She then started coming across the top of the stairs like a ski jump.

We had to get her into a safe environment, or I was going to find her at the bottom of the stairs one Sunday afternoon.

We managed to persuade her to go into a care home. We didn't know it at the time, but we managed to pick pretty much the best one in the county.

The care home staff were amazing. They gave mum an extra year and a half of life.

Once she settled down, Mum had a new lease of life. She had a crony or two to talk to, decent meals that she couldn't skip, and a little more of a social life than the four walls of the house used to provide.

Then, at Christmas, she started to go downhill quite rapidly. In February and March she was admitted to hospital twice with dehydration, malnourishment and some infection or other that it took two attempts to nail down. When she was released on the second visit it was with what was euphemistically termed an "End of Life Care Plan". We expected her to die within a few days. I even had the eulogy written.

She didn't. The care home got in a hospital bed, set one member of staff to look after Mum specifically (a few extra hours a day dealing with feeding and so on).

We didn't expect her to be out of bed either. Within two weeks the staff had mum back in the lounge for part of the day. Admittedly in a wheelchair and using a hoist, but hey! They managed it. They even had her in a lounge chair a few times.

We didn't expect her to be out of the wheelchair either. Then the staff had her standing and walking a few steps.

In two months the staff had pretty much dragged Mum back from Death's door. You know I said they were amazing? I was starting to suspect secret identities...

That was last week. The care home called this morning. Mum died early this morning, peacefully, in her sleep.

In many ways we have been very lucky. Alzheimer’s could have dragged on for years; We could have had a rotten care home (there was an expose on the television about abuse in care homes last week); So many things could have gone wrong. Instead, Mum had a relatively save environment with decent staff, and ultimately, a peaceful end.


Margaret Leeson, 1932 - 2011.