My Biggest Lie: Part 2

It was the summer of 2011. After many years of struggle, I had finally accepted that mum’s dementia had progressed to a stage where I could no longer keep her safe at home; encouraged by the social worker, I had found her a residential place. But as mum believed there was nothing at all wrong with her, how could I persuade her to move?

I had spent the August Bank Holiday with her at our family home as usual, but had returned to London to make the final arrangements. This might seem odd, given that the care home was in mum’s town; but I could not visit it openly (or indeed go out by myself at all, except briefly to the shops), neither could I use the computer or phone in mum’s presence, because, if I were out of sight for even a moment, she would come looking for me, and would interpret any outside communication as suspicious. She’d had paranoid symptoms for years; it was a horrible irony that I was now really plotting behind her back.

I needed to wait a few days to speak to the unit manager at the home, who was away on holiday. I was also waiting for the psychiatrist to return, in order to assess mum’s mental capacity for my Court of Protection Deputyship application. This would give me legal authority to manage her finances, which I would need to pay the care fees. The psychiatrist and I had agreed that I would always stay away when she visited, so that she could see how mum was on her own, and so that I would not be associated in mum’s mind with any unwelcome professional approaches. She would usually visit with Jenny, the independent care-worker mum liked, in order to maintain her trust.

A couple of days before this visit was due, I was disturbed to receive a phone call from an old friend of mum’s, whom she had not seen for a while. This friend told me that mum had rung her out of the blue, and said some very strange and upsetting things. She did not go into detail, but the fact that I never heard from her again, despite continuing to send Christmas cards, good wishes, and letters of explanation, suggests that it must have been something extremely offensive. 

The psychiatrist’s visit passed apparently without incident, although she did call me at the time to ask some background details, such as whether our dog and various relatives were dead; as so often the case, mum presented well verbally and socially, but what she said and believed was highly delusional – something you would only know by checking the facts.

I was reasonably assured that all was proceeding to plan. The next day, Jenny reported that she had looked in on mum and supervised her eating an early supper, so I felt it was safe to go out for a few hours with friends. Little did I know that mum’s symptoms had been building to an acute psychotic episode…

It was on my way home that I received a call from her Aid-Call alarm service, asking me to ring the police, who were at our house. At the time, all they could tell me was that some neighbours had found mum in distress and called the police to take her home. It was not until later in the week that I learned the full story. 

Desperate to find someone to stay with mum until I could get there, I rang round her close friends and next-door neighbours, who had often helped us in crisis – but they were all away. Social services out of hours were also unable to help, and I could not contemplate sending her anywhere alone in an ambulance. 

By this time, it was nearly midnight and I knew I was over the alcohol driving limit, but even so, I would have set off there and then, had I not needed to speak to the care home manager the next morning, when she was due back. I knew that once I returned to mum’s, all verbal communications would be impossible.

I shall never forget the despair of that night, lying awake waiting for daylight, fearful that mum might go out again in my absence and come to grief. In the morning, as soon as I had spoken to the care manager, I set off, stopping at the petrol station to stock up on food, as I would not be able to leave mum to go out shopping unless someone could sit with her.

En route, I also spoke to the social worker and updated her on events. When I arrived, I found all the curtains drawn, every light in the house blazing. In the living room, a cold cup of tea and plate of toast that I had asked the kind policemen to prepare the night before stood untouched on a side table. There was no response to my arrival. 

I found mum upstairs in bed, totally inert. Momentarily alarmed that she might actually be unconscious, I woke her. She looked at me with no curiosity, as if nothing had happened and I had been there all along.

For the rest of that week until the date of her admission to the home, we were both prisoners in the house. I had arranged for Jenny to come and sit with mum, while I went “to the shops” – in reality, an appointment at the care home, to go through paperwork with the manager. It was a nauseatingly stressful round-trip of a couple of hours, culminating in a frantic “supermarket sweep”, as I had to return with goods to support my cover story.

As the days ticked by, tension mounted. How, how could I ever raise the subject of the impending move with mum? Slipping out for another supermarket trip (covered by the next-door neighbour), I called the home from the car park. The room, they confirmed, would be vacant in a couple of days; ready when you are.  Amid the groceries, I had stashed away toiletries and make-up for mum’s sponge bag; it seemed so pitifully underhand and final. I broke down and sobbed in my car, as boisterous children scooted by on trolleys and mothers loaded their weekly shop. I have lost count of the car-parks and lay-bys I have now wept in.

So how did I do it?  What did I say?  In the end, it was mum who raised it first. Watching TV in silence, she suddenly turned to me and said: “What’s going to happen to me?”  It was a heart-stopping moment.  How did she know?  What did she know? It seemed that somehow, despite having no reasoned knowledge of the situation, she sensed that she was in crisis and that something was afoot.  How could I answer?  I had never lied to her, but neither could I explain the full truth. 

“I think you need to go somewhere, where you can have people around you”, I said.  “People to keep you company when I’m not here and look after you at night, when you get frightened.”  “I don’t get frightened”, she said, despite having repeatedly told me that she was, without ever really knowing why.  Miraculously, we managed to have a tentative discussion along these lines and she didn’t go berserk at me, as I had feared for so long - although there remained an uncomfortable silence at the end. I was hugely relieved to have it out in the open at last.  And yet… 

By the time I had put the kettle on to make a restorative cup of tea, the whole tortuous conversation had of course been forgotten. I would have to broach it again the next day – the very day of the move.

That night, as I lay curled up, weeping, in my bed, mum opened the door and looked at me, strangely dispassionate, more bemused than upset.  “What’s the matter?”, she asked.  “Why are you crying?”  What could I say?  That this was our last night together in our own home?  The house we had moved into in Christmas 1973, when it was new and my father was still alive?  Her last night in the outside world?  The beginning of the end of a relationship that had started with my birth? 

Impatient at my inability to respond, she chided: “Now come on! Stop that.”  Then: “I love you, you know. As if you were my own daughter.” As if? Then who did she think I was?  Were we strangers already?

On the day of the move, I surreptitiously packed an overnight bag, as instructed by the manager - best not to take too many things at once, you can bring in more once she’s settled – and put it ready in the back of the car. Mum came downstairs at lunchtime; I made us something to eat.

I had forwarded her “life story” information (material facts, key events, likes and dislikes) to the home from my phone, filling in the form in my bed overnight. Far from ideal, but the best that I could manage in the circumstances.  I had emailed the social worker to ask if she could stand by to come with me if needed, but she had to be in a meeting that day. All that remained was to get mum into the car.

After lunch, we sat in silence, while I steeled myself to come out with it.  And once again, mum took the lead.  “What are we doing?”, she asked.  “We’re going to look at this place”, I replied.  “What place?”  “A place for you to stay in the week, when I’m not here.  Where they can take care of you…  Shall we go then?  Just have a look?  We can have a cup of tea…?”

And that was my biggest lie.  The only way I knew, to do what had to be done.  “Just a look… Just a cup of tea…”  When I knew it was forever.

She let me zip her into her jacket and got into the car.  The staff, from the manager to the receptionist and finance controller, had been primed to greet her as a visiting guest for tea.  I took her upstairs to the unit at tea-time, and, as instructed by the manager, waited for her to be distracted in conversation, and slipped out quickly without any fuss.  Just like a mother, taking a little child for her first day at school.

A move into residential care is at least as much a watershed for the family carer, as for the person with dementia – and the grief arguably greater, for we know the full story of loss. No-one does this lightly.  One might consider it similar to abortion: a choice you make when it has become the only viable option. A similar stigma, maybe.

To carers, I say it may seem an impossible decision, an overwhelming task.  But sometimes you have to face it and you can survive.

To parents, I say please, please don’t elicit impossible promises from your children; have the courage to confront your own mortality before you lose capacity; have the discussions while you can, be realistic, draw up power of attorney, put some plans of your own in place.

To everyone: don't fear care homes.  The sector is woefully underfunded and undervalued, yes; there are bad homes, true.  But there are also many good ones and wonderful people doing essential work to support the most vulnerable in society.  Don’t let’s stigmatise them. It is not a fate worse than death.

Here are mum and I, as I prefer to remember us, about twenty years ago, outside our home, now sold to pay mum's fees. (Not, by the way, a “mansion”, as so often assumed of those liable for 100% self-funded care at circa £1,000 per week, just an ordinary suburban house.)

So if anyone thinks it’s easy to “put your mother in a home”, read this back. Imagine all those lonely years, when I had dreaded having to break mum’s trust in me, her only child.  I did it to save her. She is still alive today. I have no-one left. 

It will be a long time, if ever, before I can think of August as a happy holiday season.


(This two-part post - read part one here - is a companion piece to an earlier post concerning the issue of "truth-telling" in dementia care.)