5th September 2007 - The elephants are back

Dad looked ok when I went in today. He seemed ok too for the first minute or so, But he wasn't. The elephants were back. He was trying to tell me about why he was leaning against the "red giver wall machine" ( radiator ) but the word elephants just kept popping out of his mouth. Every time he said the word, it would annoy him, almost as if someone else was making him say it, it would distract him, defeat him.

I hope the elephants are gone tomorrow.

3rd September 2007 - Yer in an fucking nursing hame

I went in to visit on my own, jut after lunchtime. Dad was very sleepy. Maybe it was because he'd just eaten but I think he's fighting off another dose of infection because his arm seems swollen again, and hot to the touch. I sat beside him while he slept, and even managed to hold his hand for a while. That seems to please him because he woke to my touch and didn't take his hand away, but looked at me, held my eye contact for a few seconds, then fell asleep again.

Cecily was shouting at Lily "Yer in a fucking nursing hame ya daft auld bat, yer naw 19 and yer Da's long deid". Lily was obviously surprised to hear this and thought it over until she returned with "And yer aff yer heid, if this is a nursing hame, why I'm staunin' here waitin' on the 21 bus tae take me up the toon tae the dancin'? Eh? Cannae answer tha' can ye?"

Dad mumbled from his sleep "It's a train station, she's not the full shillin' that one".

30th August 2007 - Diditdiditdiditdidit

I went in on my own today. Ellie was at nursery, which was just as well as Mary latched on to me as soon as I go in. She kept repeating "Diditdiditdiditdidit", constantly, while hanging on my arm and grinning at me. She stroked my hair, like a pony's mane, "Diditdiditdidit". She appeared to be looking for some response to this and I couldn't give one other than to smile, say hello and ask how she was. She tired of me and let me go with a final "diditdiditdidit it's lovely".

In the dayroom Lily was doddering round the room trying to find cups to wash up - obviously she wouldn't be allowed to but she seemed to think this was her job. She was hampered in this by her need for a zimmer. She'd forget to use the zimmer and toddle off, find a cup, then realise she didn't have the zimmer so put the cup down again, go back for the zimmer and return for the cup only to realise she'd not be able to carry it and use the zimmer.

Tommy was screaming and screaming, cursing incomprehensibly and convulsing as he screamed. No-one was even flinching. All the other residents were in their own worlds were the outside sounds, smells and noises hardly ever seemed to permeate.


Dad let out a deep sigh. "That's a big sigh Dad" I commented redundantly, pointlessly. "Aye, I only wish I could do a bigger one" he said. He was, again, aware enough to want to die.

In the background I heard Lily let out s scream at Rab "Hey, whit you doing ya bugger? How come yer haudin' her hand? Ye never haud mine?" Fiona - one of the carers - shouts over with a laugh "That's his wife Lily, that's why he holds her haun". Another scream from Lily "Yer marrit ye sly bugger! Well, ye can keep away fae me - I'm no that kind of girl - and if I see you up the dancin' ye can keep away or I'll tell ma pals, and then I'll tell ma Da. Leadin' me oan like tha' - I'm no a wee daft lassie even though you might think it!"

I really want to take Dad out some time soon. With a chair or whatever. Get him to see some scenery, the sea, some something. Maybe this week. Fuck knows how long it is since he's been out of those walls for any length of time. Had fresh air. Seen some birds, felt some rain, felt the breeze. It's coming into autumn. A nice autumn day, lots of sunshine and red orangy colours. I think he'd like that. I hope he'd like that. I'll try for this week, but that's unlikely, next week is more likely. Maybe that's what I should do - give myself a weekly task of making a difference to his quality of life. I'm sure that would help me, if I really felt that I was making a positive impact on how he felt, on how he's living in these last months, or years, or maybe even decades. I really do want him to be untroubled - I think happy is too much to ask for - but I don't want him to worry, to feel sad, to feel lonely.

25th August 2007 - Whacky races

Surreal. Overused word - and misused too. Like ironic - how many times do you hear someone say 'and the irony was....' when there was fuck all ironic about it. Surreal is the same.

"characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtapositions"


Remember Whacky Races? The Dick Dastardly, Penelope Pitstop show? Came to mind today when I visited. Amy, Bruce, Callum, Tam, Aggie, Mary and her Frankie shadow. All of them, today, were wired. Wired and circuiting, like some kind of whacky races cum slow motion 'Benny Hill Show' title sequence.

It was hot today, which maybe accounts for some of it, but they were circuiting, circling, at a pace that would be hard for an able-ish bodied 40 something to keep up with. Chasing, following, circling, round and round. They'd wave and smile on each circuit, completely oblivious to their previous circuit and the previous interaction. They'd all sit down in a different chair each time, sit for less then a minute, then rise and continue their laps.

Where they co-ordinating this? Was it some wind up on their behalf? Did Bruce gather them all at breakfast and gigglingly hatch a plan to drive the carers 'roon the bend' - which was the effect their laps were having according to Tweedle. It would be great to think of them doing just that, of having enough of themselves to devise this way of irritating their carers and enough of themselves to enjoy the effect their actions were having. But when you saw their facial expressions, their eyes peering out bewildered and scared from their sockets, it was obvious they were following some compulsion, driven by something over which they had no control.

The irony of it was that yes, it was surreal but the tradegy of it was that no,it was real.

Dad didn't seem phased by his fellow residents circling him, didn't bat an eyelid as he'd have said. I wonder if he ever does it? He's often wandering the corridors when I come in but I've never seen him do this repetitive pattern of behaviour. He'll pick up tiny invisible specks of something, he'll arrange invisible cutlery on the table infront of him, he'll talk to invisible people and occasionally - and painfully for him - sit down on invisible chairs, but he doesn't seem to follow this particular trait of dementia. Maybe it's his type of dementia, or his type of underlying personality. Does his personality still exist I wonder - if his personality is coded in his brain, and that's dying off in bits and pieces, does his underlying self still remain and come through? Is he not joining the circuiting because of his previously imbued lack of 'socialness' - he would not have be someone to join in - is that still there? Poor Dad, still a lonely misfit even now. I'll try harder tomorrow to be kinder. Maybe it'll be warm and we can go for a walk in the gardens.

23rd August 2007 - Losing the point, the plot, the will

He couldn't talk to me today. He didn't manage to make eye contact and he couldn't make sense. He didn't know who I was. He knew - as he usually does - that I am connected to him but he didn't have a clue I was his daughter (even if I'm genetically not). He seemed pleased to see me, but that quickly left, replaced by iritation, trying, and failing, to tell me something. He regularly fell asleep and when he woke had forgotten I was there. Sometimes when he woke from his minute, or two minute, brief nap, he'd be so clueless that I was there or who I was that he'd get up to go on another wander and be annoyed when I brought him back to me. He'd sit back down and we'd try to talk again until he'd get frustrated and back down into sleep again.

What is the point. What is the fucking point of going to see him. Does he enjoy it? I don't think so. Do I just remind him of the life he's leaving, the life he had? Given that 75% of the time, maybe more, he thinks I'm my Mum, and that I leave him there on a daily basis, just what does that do to his conscious head? The woman he was married to for over 30 years,comes to visit him in a place that constantly confuses and hurts him, constantly gives him pain and degrades him but she, she of all people, leaves him there. She leaves him, smiling and waving as she goes, and backing away, dodging his proper kisses to give him her cheek and an air kiss.

I'm losing the plot. I need to keep going, of course I do. It's not just for him it's for Mum too. She'd have done more, but I'm doing what I can.

I do have the will to go - most of the time - but that's sometimes going too. Usually I can guilt myself into it. I can look at Mum and Dad's photo by my front door - they smile out at me and show me people I didn't really know. But recently I look at that photograph and see two strangers, two people I've never known who are long lost to me.

I'm self-indulging. I'll stop it. I'll see him tomorrow. Of course I will. I keep thinking of Patricia's husband, who visited every day for 5 or 6 hours for 15 years. It's not "What would Jesus do" that bothers me. "What would Alan do". He'd visit. He visited, rain, snow, hail or shite.

Sorry Dad. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm sitting here, typing this crap, and you are there sitting in yours. I'm glib, I'm vacuous, I'm useless. I'll be there tomorrow.

21st August 2007 - Tweedle fucking dim

Well, I did try to visit Dad today. Me and Ellie got there, got inside the door, even got to see Dad dodder towards us but Ellie's scary woman - Margaret - pounced at the door. We were trapped - Ellie and I - in the corner. She just wouldn't go, she was pawing at Ellie, stroking her face, stroking my hair, trying to kiss her and actually kissing me. We couldn't get around her, couldn't get away from her. Nothing I could say to Margaret was making her back off. Nothing I could say to Ellie was calming her. I shielded Ellie as best I could but she was petrified, shaking, rigidly trembling. She started to scream through her fear "Get her away from me Mummy, keep me safe!" We'd been trapped, dodging kissess and cuddles, floating like a butterfly as I bobbed, ducked and weaved out of Margaret's southpaw reach, for almost five minutes. I could see Tweedle at the office door not more than 8 feet away - she'd been watching us all along. She was smiling over at me "She still feart of Margaret then? She no grown oot of tha' yet?" Ellie was in full blown tantrumic flight and I had to shout over to Dad that I was going to go. He was completely confused as to what was going on, but I had to leave. As I turned to enter the code into the keypad, Margaret got a grip of me and Ellie, not painfully, but very firmly, she was holding on to us and we were going nowhere. We couldn't move. I could see Bruce, Alice, and Callum coming towards us, sensing the open door, sensing the possibility of escape. Their faces turned towards us, their arms slightly raised and outstretched. Zombie film. Ellie was frantic and I had to be mean to Margaret, I had to push her out the way, had to man handle her put of the way to let us free. I pushed an old demented woman, whose only crime against me was to try and touch my daughter. I'm so sorry Margaret. So sorry. And Dad, God knows what you made of that through your befuddlement. Tweedle, you are a fat, lazy cunt. How dare you just stand and watch. All it would have taken was for you to come and lead Margaret away - she'll go anywhere on a promise of a pink wafer - but no. You were on your break, and "God knows I deserve it, the amount of shite I put up wi' in this place. There's no buyin' a bed in heaven but if I've no got wan when I gits up there, I'll no be happy, I kin tell ye tha' fur nuhin'". Fuck you. Fuck you and all who sail in you. You don't deserve a medal, a sainthood, a blessed or a candle lit for you. I know you can't help being stupid, but Jesus Christ can't you be a bit more human? More humane?