Not The Pod Files - Assessment’s Early End

 

Mum is now near to the coal mining pit where her
father (my granddad) worked, as did my own dad.
Episode one of Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of
Curiosities, called Lot 36, was superb. 

March 13 to March 22 2023 - 

My younger [half] brother James had let me know about his visit on Saturday, where he went with his wife Mamico, and their children Isaac and Emma, who were a bit of a handful. 

Emma apparently had started the shower up, and Isaac was pulling all of the help cords dotted around the assessment flat.

After asking and asking, I finally found out that my oldest brother Richard had gone to visit her on the Sunday, but after signing in, he got bored waiting at the internal door to be let in, so went back home. 

I was at work on the Monday, but went to visit mum on the Tuesday, taking note of what food she still had and didn’t have, basing it on a list that Louise had written. 

It was a difficult visit, with mum not in the greatest of moods. 

Wednesday saw me getting a phone call from mum’s social worker at around 10.30am, when I was about to go to the assessment centre to pay for a week’s worth of dinner payments.

“Poppyfields have called asking for your mum to be taken out. She’s been swearing at people abusively, and throwing things out of the window.” 

I said “I’m sorry, but I thought they were dementia care and not a nursery for children. If people with Alzheimer’s weren’t a handful, then there wouldn’t be a problem!” 

The poor social worker had to then find somewhere for my mum to be moved into the following day, so had a few hours to find something. 

We decided that it was a waste of time doing some food shopping for mum, as we didn’t know what the situation would be after today, so got the basics that were needed in the short term.

We waited around at home for a call back, hours later receiving the call to say that a place had been arranged at a dementia care home, and that I needed to take my mum there, as the social worker would still be off work.

We were going to go shopping, but instead decided to take a look at the care home in preparation for taking her the following day, where we spent around two hours there.

After that we went to Poppyfields, where we arrived at ten past eight to be told that it was too late. I said “no one told us that there was a limit, and we left at 11pm last week.”

We left bits there with the staff, and went home.

Possibly a good thing as we would only have had about half an hour anyway, as I had a great show to record at 9pm with Jerad Carter about his shows Desert Skies and Desert Skies FM, where I was joined by Darren from My Guest List Pod as a co-host. 

That made me happy, because I’d been unable to record shows since January, and has run out of chat shows to put out.

On the Thursday I got to Poppyfields to find that a lot of stuff hadn’t been packed, so had to get on with it, including putting a computer tower into a black bag, as the box it had come in was nowhere to be seen. 

The journey with mum was difficult and emotional for me, not helped by the fact that I couldn’t have my Louise with me, due to the car being filled to the brim with mum in the front passenger seat, and her stuff filling the boot and the backseats.

When we got there we showed mum her room, and I left her with Steph (the team leader I’d guess) while I was joined by another member of the staff to bring mum’s items in.

It was tough to say the least, and included the bit I will never forget. Mum said that I was her son, “the c**t who put her here.”

I left there, did the food shop on my own at Aldi, got back home at ten past five, ate dinner, and left home for work late at about twenty past six, arriving at work for around twenty past seven, due to a sinkhole on the way to work.

I had held it in until work when I collapsed to the ground crying while getting the bits out of my car.

I tried my best at work.

Friday I rang the home to be told that mum had tried to get out by attempting to smash her room window with a picture frame on the Thursday night, but was completely different today, walking around with a tea trolley and helping with washing up pots, etc. 

I feel awful, but I left it there with my mum for the next few days, because it had all taken it’s toll on me.

She has three other children for crying out loud, one of whom has nothing to do with mum, and the other two of whom moaned about the new place being too difficult for them to get to.

The social worker had a few hours to sort something out, all on her day off. 

Anyway, I’ll leave that there. Thank you for reading.